The madness continues …. Iberia’s ‘90,000 Avios points for £200’ ends tonight. Let’s do the maths.

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

• _nate says:

  24 Jun24 June 23:07

  Now that we have passed 11pm, is it possible to find out a) whether Iberia are counting 11pm or midnight UK time as the cut-off; b) if bookings which have a pending card status, made before the cut-off, will still count?

  As I understand it, there is a 24-hour fee-free refund policy on bookings, so there is still time to take corrective action concerning resulting from any clarification on Monday.

  • Kk says:

    25 Jun25 June 01:11

    I called and got the answer as if booking confirmed (even not full paid) before deadline would still count. Saying that avios has got tech issue at the meantime

• RIccatti says:

  24 Jun24 June 23:08

  I just wish that people stop calling the airline and then broadly translate on here that an agent ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY MOST SURELY affirmed so and so.

  Who do they expect to find on Sunday (or on the front-line CS number at all), an experienced IT engineer who understands in-depth on how Iberia Plus Avios platform works?

  • JoeA says:

    25 Jun25 June 00:05

    +1

    I work as an Infrastructure Engineer for a very large accomodation booking site, the front line CS have absolutely no idea how the back end works.

    The marketing team are more likely to know, and I’ve read the email from them, forwarded from Rob.

    • the real harry1 says:

      25 Jun25 June 07:48

      I would still recommend moving the points to BAEC the millisecond they land in your IB a/c! 🙂

      If it all goes pear-shaped, wife & I have the pleasant dilemma of booking a few getaways in Spain for next year by Dec 1st – flights & hotels should easily use up 180,000 Avios…

      Does anybody know if I can book flights for the kids on my IB a/c? (ie same as on BAEC yes/ no)

      • the real harry1 says:

        25 Jun25 June 07:51

        redemption flights, that is?

      • xcalx says:

        25 Jun25 June 07:55

        Yes sign anyone to your account as a beneficiary

• mutley says:

  24 Jun24 June 23:35

  Still up om main Iberia site.

  • IB CEO says:

    25 Jun25 June 00:03

    Keep buying them flights!!!!!!!

• LHFlyer says:

  25 Jun25 June 01:08

  Many years ago LH used to offer an overdraft for their Senator level frequent flyers. From memory it was more or less enough miles for a business class flight from Europe to anywhere in the world (including the South Pacific). I seem to recall that the number of miles was a relic from a very old coupon based system. At any rate there was no requirement to ‘pay it back’ when you dropped to FTL or back to Blue. Presumably the leakage on this was tolerable because this system stood for quite a number of years.

  Very foolishly when LH did a status match for BA status holders (just as the travel blogs/websites really stated to become serious ventures) they let all the newly minted BA Senators have the overdraft. All of a sudden they had a stack of people who had never credited a mile to LH redeeming long haul business class awards.

  LH’s solution for all this was to amend the Ts&Cs of Miles and More to provide that if you dropped down from Senator the miles had to be repaid (i.e. by being earnt) within 90 days (or similar) or LH could bill you for the miles (at some super high euro cents per mile). This applied across the board – namely to people who had both dropped down from Senator after earning it and who dropped down after being status matched. I seem to recall that LH did indeed start send invoices out. Whether they bothered to enforce the (GBP8k or so) invoices in a court in the member’s relevant jurisdiction is another matter. Although I would imagine that in this country there would be plenty of mercantile agencies who would be willing to do this charging LH only a percentage of recovery though.

  I would imagine that this will be one way for IB to attack the problem of thousands of IB+ accounts sitting at -90000 miles on 2 December.

• Kk says:

  25 Jun25 June 01:08

  All of the bookings are linked to an account, simply they can work out which flight or route are most likely with lots of no show base on the analysis of someone booking behavior.

• Matt Snell says:

  25 Jun25 June 01:45

  I managed to book 5 flights 🙂 so that’s 45000 Avios points 🙂 l never book on Iberia before and used Iberia web site. So will it be bad if let go negative in December? As I always used BA to fly. Or should now book on Iberia in future?

  By the I also brought 4000 Avios on Groupon Ireland for €50 so in total 49000 Avios.

  Hopefully with my new Amex gold credit card I get another 20000 Avios when I spent £2000!!

  • Matt says:

    25 Jun25 June 07:11

    Did you not get referred so you could earn 22,000?

    • Matt Snell says:

      25 Jun25 June 08:30

      No it was done directly with American Express. I should got a referral ????

• R says:

  25 Jun25 June 08:46

  FWIW, this is the message I got back this morning from the Twitter team.

  “Hi [R], Thank you for your inquiry, and sorry for the late reply. Please be advised that our promotional Avios cannot be transferred. Kind regards, ”

  It seams that apart from what Rob was told by the marketing team, all the IB reps are singing with one voice. Presumably the proof of the pudding will soon be in the eating. If, that is, the points actually post in the near future ….

  • Ian says:

    25 Jun25 June 09:24

    I’m sure that will be the case. The question is whether they ring fence the promotional avios or simply disable all transfers. Depends how good their IT team is I guess!

• Gavlar says:

  25 Jun25 June 09:25

  I made 10 separate one-way bookings for the wife and I, and I entered our Iberia Plus membership number on the booking. The confirmation email I got for each booking confirmed the Iberia Plus number had been captiured correctly.
  However I’ve just gone into the Manage My Booking on the Iberia website and under Passenger Information the Frequent Flyer Card info does NOT contain our Iberia Plus numbers. Instead it says “Add Number” and clicking this takes me to a page where I can enter my Iberia Plus number.

  This is a bit concerning to me. Any ideas ?

  • the real harry1 says:

    25 Jun25 June 10:11

    yep more than a little concerning

    but not a massive problem – you made the booking whilst the promotion was running, if the IB number is missing, get it added in

    1. check with IB if your suspicions are correct
    2. if missing, add in the IB number

    I checked one of ours on IB Manage your booking and all OK, the IB numbers were added automatically yesterday when I clicked I was flying, having logged in

  • Gumshoe says:

    25 Jun25 June 10:13

    When you’re logged in to the desktop site, click on ‘Bookings’ on the left hand side of the home page. All your bookings should be listed. If not, I’d suggest you have a problem.

    • bill says:

      25 Jun25 June 12:05

      https://www.iberia.com/web/myTrips.do?allShowTrips=true&tabId=&menuId=CHKTRP

      • PT says:

        25 Jun25 June 13:57

        The link from bill does the trick perfectly once you’re logged into your account. Thank you.

  • EvilGazebo says:

    25 Jun25 June 10:33

    As I think Rob has already said, if your confirmation emails have the FF number in then I think you should be good, Worst case might require some chasing/manual application but their IT problems / inconsistencies should not be your problem. At least that’s what I’m relying on……..

  • Will says:

    25 Jun25 June 11:14

    Gavlar I am just noticed the same issue. Can’t seem to get anyone on Iberia phone who can discuss Iberia plus queries so be interested to know how you get on. Adding the number seems pretty straight forward but wondering if it’s better to get them to do it

  • Gavlar says:

    25 Jun25 June 16:13

    I’ve just added on the number and now they all appear under “My Bookings” within my account and my wifes account. I did also send them an email earlier with screenshots so fingers crossed its ok and I don’t have to fight to get the points.

    • Londonsteve says:

      29 Jun29 June 17:36

      I booked two flights and due to an IT error, the system claimed that the passenger name and IB Plus account names were different. They were not. There was no way to force the page to accept the number, so I had to go ahead and book without a FF number, choosing the write to Iberia same day via email and try to get them added. I would add, I have had my IB Plus account since 2014.

      I have just received a reply to inform me that as the number was not in the field at the point of booking, I am ineligible for the promotion. I consider this completely unfair and I booked these flights in good faith as a long standing member (certainly compared to people that were signing up their dog and great aunt with new accounts just to milk the promotion). I know a lot of people were having the same technical problem as I and some might even have gone ahead and booked 10 flights in the same circumstances….

      Does anyone have advice about potential next steps? This feels like Iberia washing its hands of something that was down to their patchy IT in the first place.

      • the real harry1 says:

        29 Jun29 June 18:05

        possibly chargeback to whichever credit or charge card you used, saying that IT glitch (as you detailed) meant you are missing out on 18,000 bonus points, you could make it sound as if it’s IB at fault

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