Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Iberia Plus new Avios spending chart launched yesterday – some BA flights now cheaper via IB

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Yesterday, April 1st, was the day that Iberia Plus brought in its new pricing for Avios redemptions.  Members of British Airways Executive Club have another 26 days to enjoy the current rates.

There are, however, a few sweet spots in the new Iberia Plus redemption table which you can exploit for the next 26 days.

Here is the current award chart for British Airways redemptions made via ba.com or avios.com.  This is the table which is still being used until April 28th:

Avios bandings

This is the new Iberia Plus chart for redemptions on British Airways which came into effect yesterday:

Iberia BA pricing 2

You also need the following table of peak and off-peak dates for BA redemptions (a cross is a peak date):

Calendar 2

The following BA Avios flights will be cheaper if booked on iberia.com rather than ba.com until April 28th:

ALL economy (Eurotraveller, World Traveller) redemptions booked for off-peak dates – you save up to 17,500 Avios each-way, based on a one-way Zone 9 flight

ALL World Traveller Plus redemptions booked for off-peak dates – you save up to 10,000 Avios each-way, based on a one-way Zone 9 flight

Zone 1-3 Club Europe redemptions booked for off-peak dates – you save up to 3,000 Avios each-way, based on a one-way Zone 3 flight

However, before you book bear the following in mind:

British Airways redemptions booked on iberia.com cannot be changed, cancelled or refunded – is it worth saving a few Avios to give up this flexibility?

Iberia does not have Reward Flight Saver.  Whilst ba.com may be asking for more Avios points, iberia.com may want more in tax.

This arbitrage is only available for bookings made during the next 26 days (for travel at any point in the next 355 days) at which point British Airways will adopt the chart being used by Iberia.

Remember that, in order to move Avios from British Airways Executive Club or avios.com into Iberia Plus, your Iberia Plus account must be over 90 days old and must have earned at least 1 Avios point.

There are also some long-haul arbitrages with Iberia (flights which are now cheaper on iberia.com than ba.com) which I will remind you about tomorrow.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (10)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • mike says:

    DEFINITION of ‘Arbitrage’

    The simultaneous purchase and sale of an asset in order to profit from a difference in the price.

    • Worzel says:

      There’s a bit more to it than that:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage

    • Charlie says:

      The traded assets here being the selling of Avios and the buying of a flight, at a rate lower than normal, hence some Avios is saved…. or in other words profited (if assuming you must take this flight). Otherwise not selling Avios is the best way to save them!

  • Metty says:

    Just a heads up for those who may be planning to use IB+ Avios: I tried to make a booking 8 days ago and found that my account was locked (as per BA). It wasn’t obvious (unlike BA) as the Avios balance did not zero. And I had already changed PIN as per advice on the IB site.

    IB have been much more fun to deal with than BA but inconsistent with how to unlock the account. When I rang yesterday, I was told that yes they had received my passport scan by email but because I hadn’t sent a PIN unlock form with it, nothing had been actioned.

    Earlier last week IB admin were kind enough to call to talk about the issue and gave me a number to call back on when I said I wasn’t comfortable discussing the details of my account without the ability to verify who they were….anyhow when I tried to call back, the number was permanently engaged for 4 days, so I never did find out if it was IB or a scammer calling.

    Just in case someone is hoping to use their IB Avios soon, I suggest that a dummy booking may reveal whether you are in audit, as it is not obvious, plus based on my experience it may take well over a week to resolve.

    • Jason says:

      I had a similar problem, of my own making, with my wife’s account around the time of the economist offer.
      I hadn’t noted the password, on opening her account, and couldn’t reset it so had to email Iberia, about 3 weeks later I received a reply asking for some id and a copy of her passport, 2 weeks after I returned that I received an email to reset her password.
      Luckily I wasn’t needing to book a flight.
      Does anyone know although there are lots of available flights on BA.com they don’t show on the Iberia plus site, if you call iberia do they show on their system?

  • Natalie says:

    I had previously combined my avios from Iberia and for some reason it looks like they credited it back to my account. I tried to re-combine and it’s telling me ‘Combine my Avios was unsuccessful You cannot use Combine My Avios with this account.’

    And actually it looks like my Iberia account has *doubled* — bug? Error? Instead of 0 in Iberia and 12,500 in BA, I now have 25k in Iberia.

    What’s going on, any ideas?

  • Liz says:

    OT The 1000 bonus miles for opting in to Virgin from Tesco credited today! I did this a couple of years ago but I got the 1000 bonus miles again this time!

  • Me says:

    I am getting an error when looking for avios availability in the Iberia.com website:
    The reservation system of Iberia Plus is not available at the moment. Please, contact your Service Center (I999)
    Then the flight options show, but if I want to see the price another error comes up:
    An error has occurred. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask you to please try again after a few minutes. If the error persists please contact us.

    • Tobi says:

      Yes I get the same error since couple of weeks. I made a manual PIN reset with the customer service, but nothing helped. They are just telling me, that all is fine with my account, and they don’t know how to fix it. Respect Iberia!!!

      Anyone else getting those errors, is there any solution? It feels like my avios are frozen -.-

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