Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Get 1,000 free Avios in Iberia Plus if you have an Android phone

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For the last couple of months, the taxi ordering app Hailo – which is now operating in Madrid and Barcelona – has been running a special promotion with Iberia Plus.

If you download the Hailo app and create an account, you get 1,000 free Avios in Iberia Plus.  No purchase required.

Full details can be found on the Iberia website here.

The snag is that the Hailo app knows where you are, thanks to the GPS system on your phone.  You are only able to add your Iberia Plus number to the app if you are in Spain at the time.

Thanks to readers Craig and Paul, we have found a solution.

You need an Android smartphone to do this.  It seems that you cannot fake the GPS co-ordinates of an iPhone without jailbreaking it, which is not recommended.

This is what you do:

If you don’t already have Hailo on your phone, download the app and create an account.  Use the same name as the name on your Iberia Plus account.

Download a free Android app called Fake GPS

Open Fake GPS and move the marker on the screen to Madrid in Spain

Re-open Hailo.  You see will a message on screen saying ‘Welcome to Madrid’.

Click on ‘Profile’ in the menu section of the app.  Scroll down to the bottom and you will see a menu item called ‘Iberia Plus’.  Click on this and enter your Iberia Plus number.

That’s it.  1,000 Avios points should arrive in your Iberia account.  They only seem to post them once a month so you may have a bit of a wait.

As well as getting you 1,000 Avios, this activity will also ‘activate’ a new Iberia Plus account and therefore allow you to move your points to and from ba.com and avios.com.

This offer closes on April 30th so I would get onto it ASAP.  You can find out more on iberia.com here.

If you happen to be in Spain before April 30th, you can also earn 10 Avios for every €8 you spend riding with Hailo.


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 (79)

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

  • AC says:

    Having a Spanish girlfriend does have some uses then!

  • Frank says:

    I did this several weeks ago and the avios have still not posted. Do you know on which date they are supposed to post?

  • Mops says:

    The article says ‘Use the same name as the name on your Iberia Plus account.’ but the app only asks for a first name in order to register.

    Do I just enter my first name then? Or do I have to put my full name in the first name box?

    • Rob says:

      In that case, it doesn’t matter. Some people tend to use false names for these things but I wanted to dissuade people of that in case Hailo does send a surname to Avios. This being Spain, they may want your surname rather than first name, but who knows?

  • elGuiri says:

    One thing possibly to note is that the FakeGPS app requires granting permission to modify system settings. As a paranoid guy, I check out a bit further if such permissions are required – and this app developer’s website link does not work.
    Add to the fact there are only a couple of hundred reviews compared to some of the competing apps, I decided to find another.
    “Fake gps – fake location” has thousands of reviews, and doesn’t require permissions to modify system settings. I installed it and it worked fine for setting Madrid location for me for Halo.
    I am not affiliated in any way with it, and have not used either of these apps before, but am very wary of granting unnecessary permissions to apps. Just i case you are too, I thought I’d mention it.

    • Lady London says:

      unnecessary extra permissions….. I guess you can’t have anything Google on your account then 🙂

  • Temp says:

    Feel free to laugh at my naivety but once done can you clear out the fake location straight away? (Sorry!)

    • Alan says:

      Yep you can just switch off the fake location and uninstall the app 🙂

      • Temp says:

        Thanks Alan. I use Hailo and didnt fancy being picked up in Madrid!

  • M says:

    Successful report from the US. I was able to sign-up with an US Google Voice number on an Android tablet (not phone). HTH

  • Josh says:

    Hi did we come to a conclusion whether to include the IB in the Iberia number? I only entered the digits. Thanks

  • Rob says:

    Just did it, though my hailo account isn’t new, it’s a couple of years old in fact – will the Avios still post?

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

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