Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

ENDS 11pm SUNDAY: Iberia’s VERY generous 90,000 Avios promo – it really does work

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Iberia launched a new promotion on Thursday which, on the face of it, looked EXCEPTIONALLY generous.

For every Iberia flight you book between now and Sunday night, however cheap, you will receive 9,000 bonus Avios.  Your flying dates can be for whenever you choose.

These Avios will post to your account immediately (within 10 days) and not when you fly.

Even if you use the points for what is usually a poor value deal, such as booking a hotel, you should double your money.

You can find full details on the Iberia website here.

There were, however, a number of things that weren’t clear as you can see in the comment section under yesterday’s article.

We talked to someone at Iberia to clarify the promotion and here are the facts about how the deal works.

In summary – EARNING the Avios really is as good as it seems.   (Spending is different, see below.)  Book 10 x cheap one-way flights on iberia.com from a participating country by Sunday night and you’ll have 90,000 Avios in your Iberia Plus account within 10 days.

Santander to Madrid appears to be a route with very low fares, around €25, as is Palma to Madrid and Malaga to Madrid.  There are likely to be others.  If you want to spend some time digging I would start with the Iberia Express route map and look for the Winter months.  October to February are likely to have the best prices.

To clarify:

The 9,000 bonus Avios are awarded per booking and not flight, so for cheap Avios you need to be booking one-way flights on any of the participating airlines (Iberia, Iberia Express, Air Nostrum)

You need to book via iberia.com – any page, not necessarily the offer home page.  Do not use the Iberia Express or Air Nostrum sites.

You only need one segment in a booking to be on Iberia, Iberia Express or Air Nostrum, so a flight on British Airways which connects to Iberia Express for the last leg is OK

Bookings must be made by Sunday night – for safety I would make them by 11pm which would be midnight in Spain

Your Iberia Plus number needs to be put into the booking at the time of making it

Each booking can be for multiple people – if each person has an Iberia Plus account, each will receive 9,000 Avios

This offer is available in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Russia, United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico and USA

There is no obligation for your flights to start or end in the UK – domestic Spanish flights are fine

Here is the key one:

Iberia WILL NOT take back the 9,000 bonus Avios if you don’t turn up for the flight but you will not receive the normal base Avios that the flight would generate

So, as far as earning the 9,000 to 90,000 Avios is concerned, it is all now very clear.  If you can find 10 x bargain one-way flights, which could be as cheap as €250 or so, you’ll get 90,000 Avios very cheaply.

Spending the Avios is more of an issue:

If you don’t spend the bonus Avios via Iberia Plus by 1st December they will be taken back.

Iberia has confirmed that the 9,000 bonus Avios have to be spent through the Iberia Plus programme before 1st December but the services booked can be for 2019 (i.e. future flight tickets, hotel bookings or rental car bookings)

Transferring the Avios to a BA account instead of using them through the Iberia Plus programme will result in a negative balance in your Iberia account on 1st December

So, as I see it, here are your options for spending the points:

You transfer the Avios to a standard BA Executive Club account

This is possible via ‘Combine My Avios’ and they can be used as you want.  However, on 1st December, your Iberia Plus account will show a negative balance because the bonus Avios will be reclaimed as you have not spent them.   Having a permanent negative balance on your Iberia Plus account will stop you booking low-tax redemptions via Iberia Plus in the future.

You CANNOT transfer Iberia Plus Avios into a BA Executive Club account which is part of a Household Account

You would need to break up your BA Household Account, remembering that changes can only be made once every six months.  Alternatively you could transfer to an Aer Club or Vueling Club account but I am not 100% sure if they can transfer into a BA Household Account.  It should be possible as the old-style avios.com accounts allowed this.  Your Iberia account would still end up with negative balance in December which may or may not concern you.

You spend the Avios via the Iberia Plus website

This is the ‘cleanest’ option because you won’t end up with a negative balance in December as the bonus Avios won’t be clawed back due to non-use.  However, remember the following quirks with Iberia Plus:

British Airways short-haul redemptions have higher taxes, because you don’t get Reward Flight Saver pricing

You cannot use a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher when redeeming via the Iberia Plus website

Partner redemptions (except for BA) CANNOT be cancelled or changed once booked, if made via Iberia Plus

Partner redemptions (except for BA) must be booked as return flights if made via Iberia Plus

One good option is booking a hotel via Iberia Plus.  90,000 Avios will get – using the 0.55p per point valuation Avios uses – exactly £500 of free hotel stays.  If you can pick up the 10 flights for £250, you are doubling more money.  Remember that hotel bookings made with Avios do not earn hotel loyalty points and you will not receive status benefits.

If you can work around these three issues then you are fine.  This HfP article looks at low tax options when redeeming Avios on Iberia’s website.

Conclusion

It is now clear that Iberia is serious about this offer (heaven knows why, as they are paying real intra-group cash to Avios Group for them) and that you can earn 90,000 Avios as cheaply as you can find 10 x one-way Iberia, Iberia Express or Air Nostrum flights on iberia.com. You will NOT need to take these flights.

Spending those Avios will not be totally straightforward, however, and will leave you with some mess to tidy up, even if it is nothing more than having to abandon your Iberia Plus account due to a negative balance.

Iberia has ensured us that complaints, should your Avios not appear, will be taken seriously and you can email: clasica@iberia.es or call 020 3684 3774 if there are any issues.

If you are going to give this a go, block out an hour of your day to do it.  You need to make 10 totally separate bookings, meaning 10 credit card payments etc.

You can find full details of this offer and the booking link on this special page of the Iberia website.

You can book from there or via the main Iberia booking page here.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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

Get 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

30,000 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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large 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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

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

50,000 points when you sign-up 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.

Category

Iberia and Club Iberia Plus

Comments (552)

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

  • Eugene says:
    23 Jun23 June 21:42

    Doom mongers aside- Is. There a way to parse the various options to spend 90k from MAD? I had a look but it seems quite clumsy, you have to specify a single date and route. Then if it does show avail it’s hidden behind big pop up saying you haven’t got enough Avios. Very tedious.

    • Rob says:
      23 Jun23 June 22:17

      The reward chart is in a link in the article.

      • Eugene says:
        23 Jun23 June 22:46

        ????

      • Eugene says:
        23 Jun23 June 22:49

        So it appears that all newly created IB Plus accounts since Friday will be disqualified from gaining the benefit of this promotion .not sure all our HFPers have got this message.

        • Idiot says:
          23 Jun23 June 23:10

          If that is true then I have wasted £210!

        • Neil says:
          23 Jun23 June 23:37

          To be fair, Rob is always hammering home the fact that you should have an IB set up ready to go.

        • tom says:
          24 Jun24 June 01:20

          according to the email i got a few days ago it appears not as this is copied and pasted from the email i received…..

          Earning an extra 9,000 Avios couldn’t be easier!
          Just register with Iberia Plus and buy a ticket by June 24, in any class and for any destination, and spend them by December 1.

  • Delbert says:
    23 Jun23 June 21:49

    I went for it and fried my wife’s IB account as well. Let’s see how this pans out.

  • Jenni says:
    23 Jun23 June 22:07

    How are people doing this with multiple new accounts? I have created one genuine account for myself and can’t book a single flight. The contact line are useless, I’ve had 3 agents hang up on me already and i really don’t have it in me to try again.

    • RIccatti says:
      23 Jun23 June 22:12

      Comes in over and over — Iberia advised that newly created Iberia Plus accounts (and numbers) can’t be put into bookings for up to 3 days (72 hours).

      • Londoner says:
        23 Jun23 June 23:38

        Where at?
        Because T&C’s state nothing about having to wait 3 days before you are a “real” member, and the welcome email actually says the opposite: “Here is your Iberia Plus customer number so you can start to use it and, together with your pin code, access the Iberia Plus Area at http://www.iberia.com.
        You can check your Avios balance, the number of flights and the Elite points you have accumulated, as well as the Avios you need to upgrade to the next card level. Or book flights when you wish!”

        Especially the first and last sentence of above indicates that it is available for use immediately. I’ve gone through T&C’s on Iberia Plus and there seems to be no mention of a 3-day period (or any period for that matter).

        • RIccatti says:
          24 Jun24 June 00:41

          1. People reported being advised by Iberia CS on the phone on 72 hours wait before new accounts become fully operational.

          2. The wait is reasonable given that Iberia Plus information has to propagate/being synced with other Iberia systems down the line (e.g., Iberia uses own system for inventory management RESIBER).

          3. You can cite the terms and conditions to an Iberia representative, fight to the tooth and letter till the Judgement Day cometh. They will just hang up on you.

    • Erica says:
      24 Jun24 June 02:45

      Same for me. I’m bummed I can’t book with my new IB Plus#. HFP is the only place I could find with info on why my new Plus acct wasn’t working. Thanks all for the posts so I could figure out why!

    • Odd behaviour on a sunny summers day says:
      24 Jun24 June 14:56

      honestly, who could be bothered?

  • CV3V says:
    23 Jun23 June 22:19

    There are a number of posts highlighting the other options of sending via Aer Lingus or Vueling. Options other than avios.com exist. Worst case, redeem the avios with iberia for a hotel booking. Perhaps not even a worst case as it will protect the IB account from going negative.

  • Matthew says:
    23 Jun23 June 22:25

    I normally wouldn’t bite on something like this, but I’ve booked a trip to Vegas for the end of august. Hotel at four night at the aria is coming in at £950 which I was going to pay.

    After seeing this promo earlier I decided to check how much it would cost to book with avios – came to 95,000.

    So decided take the plunge. All goes to plan, the 90k avios will pretty much pay for a £950 hotel room. Fingers crossed.

    • CV3V says:
      23 Jun23 June 22:30

      I have Vegas in December, same plan, use the IB avios to book the Aria. It will need a check against the cash price, but only to ensure i am maximising the value of the avios, but that said no matter the outcome it will be a good deal.

      • Paul says:
        24 Jun24 June 09:00

        Now that’s some news about this potential pitfall offer right there. I also fly to Vegas in December for 16 nights, I can now see a real benefit in cancelling some rooms and staying at Aria! Thanks. I wonder if I could book as far in advance as December 2019.

      • Andy says:
        24 Jun24 June 09:50

        We used Avios to book the Manderian in Vegas because it seemed to be the only hotel that included the resort tax within the booking.
        Must say we prefer the Four Seasons though

    • Riaz Shah says:
      24 Jun24 June 07:15

      I stayed at the Aria this week. It was offering hotel rooms for as little as $30 + $30 resort fee..!

      • CV3V says:
        24 Jun24 June 08:22

        Thanks, will be in Vegas in December, first time i checked hotel rooms were over £100 per night, next time i checked they had dropped down to the rates you describe. Also have a stay in SFO to book where i reckon hotel rates won’t be dropping.

  • Martin says:
    23 Jun23 June 22:48

    What happens if I book a flight with those 90k avios and later cancel it for avios redeposit? Will those avios be “clean”?

    • Rob says:
      24 Jun24 June 00:18

      Good question, I was wondering that. I think, yes, because IB’s IT cannot be that good.

      • Si says:
        24 Jun24 June 00:35

        You’re up late… you also sitting in car waiting to collect a drunk wife from train station!?

        • Rob says:
          24 Jun24 June 00:59

          I was in a Bentley getting chauffeur driven back from Glyndebourne, as it happens 🙂

          Might do an article to explain why.

  • PAL says:
    23 Jun23 June 22:51

    10 x one way done, this must be how americans feel when they get 100k miles for all those credit cards…Good to see that 100k miles can be gained from visiting Santander and driving a mid range avis hire. Thanks Rob

  • Idiot says:
    23 Jun23 June 22:57

    Have I been an idiot and wasted £210?
    I created an account, logged on and booked 10 flights assuming I was in Iberia.com and earning 9000 avios per booking. I did not get any of the problems others reported about invalid account number as I was already logged on and it just showed my account. But was I not making bookings through the right web page and therefore not earning the avios?

    • Matthew says:
      23 Jun23 June 23:01

      You don’t need to have made your bookings through a particular link, just need to make sure you link the Avios through your IB account

    • Eugene says:
      23 Jun23 June 23:12

      My concern for you is that it apparently takes 3 days for IB to link new account numbers to flights so that takes you outside their 3 day period and you aren’t “identified as a member of the IB programme during the purchase process” Sneaky.

      • Rob says:
        24 Jun24 June 00:18

        I think you’re fine – the booking includes the number and that is the requirement.

      • tom says:
        24 Jun24 June 00:51

        just got off the phone to iberia plus and they said yep i still qualify having just registered… also checked back at my emails and by iberia (signed up to their newsletter ages ago without being a plus member)

        email quotes… (Copied and paste from email)
        “Earning an extra 9,000 Avios couldn’t be easier!
        Just register with Iberia Plus and buy a ticket by June 24, in any class and for any destination, and spend them by December 1. “

    • RIccatti says:
      23 Jun23 June 23:15

      No particular web link for promo.

      Make sure your IB Plus number is in your bookings — best to return in 24h-48h and check/insert then. Hope for the best after.

      Which makes me think, why on Earth, Iberia did not make this personalised promotion — cannot see it under Iberia Plus/My Promotions — this is where the alike promos from Iberia appeared in the past (eg, book by XX date, and get 2-300 Avios).

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

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