Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

How to spend your 90,000 Iberia Plus Avios – as you can’t move them to BA (Part 2)

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This is Part 2 of my article on how to spend your 90,000 Avios from the recent Iberia promotion.  Part 1 is here.

A word about peak and off peak dates

Just to make life even more complex, Iberia has its own list of peak and off-peak dates. This is different from the British Airways list. Here is the Iberia peak dates chart for 2019 (click to enlarge, green is peak):

2018

2019

Iberia Avios off peak calendar 2019

Iberia Avios off peak calendar 2019

Iberia Avios off peak calendar 2019

You can compare it with the British Airways peak and off-peak chart in this HfP article.

October half-term, for example, is a peak week for British Airways redemptions and peak pricing is in force. Iberia does not treat this week as a peak week.  During such periods the price differences can be stark:

  • London to New York, BA Club World, is 120,000 Avios during October half term
  • Madrid to New York, Iberia Business Class, is 68,000 Avios during October half term

And that’s before you factor in the massive difference in taxes ….

Iberia is the home of low taxes

Iberia Plus does not charge the full range of airport taxes and fuel surcharges imposed by ba.com.  This is a BIG thing and the real reason (apart from the better seat and potentially lower number of Avios needed) to consider Iberia seriously.

Let’s look at Madrid to New York in Business Class, return. Iberia, when you book on iberia.com, will charge 68,000 Avios plus £159 return on an off-peak date.

A BA redemption from London to New York (via ba.com on a BA plane) on the same route in Club World costs 100,000 Avios plus £538 on an off-peak date!  That is, by any stretch, a big difference.

More interestingly, if you try to book the Iberia Madrid to New York flight on ba.com using BA Avios, it will charge you £368 of taxes.  This is for the SAME Iberia flight which costs only £159 of tax on iberia.com using Iberia Avios.

Now, of course all is not plain sailing:

  • From the UK, you need to fly to Madrid. However, if you are not based in London you will be taking a connecting flight anyway. And the saving probably justifies not flying direct from London.
  • The London to Madrid flight cannot be booked on the same itinerary as the Madrid to New York flight or you will be obliged to pay UK Air Passenger Duty at the long-haul rate. Since you will have separate tickets, IB is not obliged to look after you if you miss your long-haul flight – although if you fly IB from London, it is very unlikely they would abandon you if the delay was down to them. 
  • A flight from London to Madrid, return, costs 15,000 Avios and £35 in Economy – but that is hardly making a great dent in your £379 per person saving.

Redeeming Avios on other oneworld airlines

You can also redeem Avios on oneworld partner airlines such as American Airlines and Qatar Airways.

For clarity, you need to be very careful before booking these because such redemptions are non-changeable and non-cancelable.  You also need to book return flights – availability will not even show if you only look for a one-way redemption.

Here is the distance-based pricing chart for oneworld partners.  Technically there is a separate chart for redeeming on American Airlines but it is the same as this one:

Iberia oneworld redemption chart

There clearly are some deals here.  If you transfer over 10,000 Avios from BA, or move 10,000 American Express Membership Rewards points into Iberia Plus, you will be at 100,000 Avios.

Using the chart above, that is good for a redemption – using as many oneworld airlines as you wish – of up 8,000 miles.

Redeeming for a cash discount on an Iberia, Iberia Express or Air Nostrum flight

You can use your 90,000 Avios for a cash discount against an Iberia, Iberia Express or Air Nostrum flight booked on iberia.com.  This will get you around 0.55p of value depending on how many you use.  Not being able to use this against a discount on a BA flight does, of course, make this less useful for UK residents.

Redeeming for hotels, tours and attractions

You can book 20,000 hotels and 30,000 tours and attractions via this page of the Iberia website.

We usually don’t recommend using your Avios for non-flight redemptions.  This is because the value you receive is generally poor – around 0.55p per Avios compared with 1p+ for flights.

In this case, however, you may think differently.  If you redeem your 90,000 Iberia Plus Avios for a hotel redemption, you will still be doubling your money compared to what you paid for the points.

There are also tours and attractions which can be booked.  I wouldn’t normally book these via an airport portal but, again, in this scenario it would be a decent result.

The hotels and attractions home page says that bookings using Avios are NOT changeable.  However, for hotels this is contradicted by people who have bookings who say that – if the room itself was advertised as a refundable one – you can cancel up to 72 hours before arrival for a £25 fee.

Conclusion

I hope this has given you some ideas for how to use your 90,000 Avios via Iberia Plus.

Do remember that Iberia Plus is not an area where I spend a lot of time so keep an eye out for any errors and omissions in what I wrote above and do not treat it as gospel.

At the end of the day, even if you end up using your 90,000 Avios for something sub-optimal – such as a hotel redemption – you will still have got an excellent return on the money you spent.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 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

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.

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

Huge 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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) and NO FX fees 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.

Comments (112)

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

  • Georges says:

    Does anyone know if it’s possible to book a one way Madrid – New York or London – New York BUT with a connecting flight on AA within the US using Iberia Plus Avios?

    • Rob says:

      Yes, need to call IB (I guess) and it will price off the oneworld chart.

      • ADS says:

        i phoned them up for exactly that last week (LAS-LAX-MAD) and they couldn’t do it.

        i assumed it was the AA one-way flight that wasn’t showing up on their system (i know it was available, having already checked on AA.com)

        • Lady London says:

          Yes but I suspect in the other direction it would have. Airlines often have permission to land at a place or add a segment from a place but not able to have that place as the place the ticket started from. If you don’t believe me try ZRH and MAD.

    • Marcw says:

      No you can’t. Rtrn only. The only exception is InterJet, where you can get one way redemptions in combination with an Iberia flight to Mexico City

      • ADS says:

        does it work the other way too e.g. LAS-MEX-MAD ?

        is there anyway of finding out availability for Interjet online ??

  • VERTE TONOS MÁS TARDE says:

    Just transferred my 900,000( multiple accounts)Avios to BAEC.
    Not saying how or they might close the loop hole.
    This was a great deal 900,000 Avios for £2000.
    Adios amigos.

    • John Smith says:

      No you didn’t.

    • Margaret says:

      The work around was on the FT forum yesterday, but I’m spending mine with iberia anyway as they gave a very generous promotion. I don’t believe s/he created 10 accounts which worked and have credited though. …..and the user name is a bit of a clue!

  • BJ says:

    Hopefully these ideas will put an end to the deluge of petty complaints and indignation of yesterday. Many of you have a substantial bunch of cheap avios at the inconvenience and expense of genuine travellers who will be unable to obtain seats they want or need, or will pay inflated prices for them. Compared to theirs, the issues of HFP and other blog readers who exploilted this promotion are trivial. When playing this promotion you were well aware that things might not be quite as simple as it seemed but you still took the chance anyway. Despite some hurdles and limitations that chance still paid off but perhaps not quite in the way many of you hoped. There is now about 5 months to make use of those avios within the constraints Iberia have imposed. In my opinion these are fair and generous so now is a time for patience and rational decision making on redemptions, not a time for unjustified complainrs and annoyance. Indeed you should enjoy what you got while you can, it is a short term win, more akin to a loan, to be repaid later. Iberia will possibly make money (or not lose as much as we might think) from this because they will likely sell a lot that would otherwise have gone unsold. There will be no loss of sleep at IAG over the avios, they will simply factar their losses from this and the recent US class action settlement into their next devaluation. Ultimately, it is us frequent flyers who are the losers, not IAG.

    • Matt says:

      So BJ you didn’t take up the offer then ????

      • the real harry1 says:

        lol 🙂

        only one thing worse than an Avios loser – that’s an Avios snoozer!

      • BJ says:

        No, posted similar comment on forst day of the promotion.I didn’t need the avios and it would just have encouraged me to make an unnecessary trip. I admit I wavered a bit on the final day for hotels but resisted that too for the same reasons. Been fortunate with my travel opportunities over the years, becoming increasingly content to stay at home unless travel is essential.

    • Janne Ohtonen says:

      BJ, it is not unjustified complaint if a company advertises a promotion under one set of T&Cs and then implements it after the fact under another. That is potentially illegal and most certainly it is brand damaging in minimum. I did not have much faith in Iberia before and now I have lost my trust in them completely and will do my best to avoid them going forward (and tell everyone else also not to trust their promotions as they clearly are not trustworthy). What’s the cost of that for a business in long-term? A lot! I would not have minded if they had disclosed the non-transferable in the original T&Cs, but now they played dirty.

      Ps. remember that Iberia didn’t need to do this promotion, it was their choice! But they should have been transparent about the T&Cs as good consumer practice requires from the start.

      • Marcw says:

        Where has IbPlus breached their T&Cs?

      • callum says:

        Complete and utter rubbish. While they may not have specifically said you can’t transfer them, they clearly said you have to use them with Iberia Plus. They are 100% in the right – YOU are trying to cheat them and now are throwing a tantrum because you were caught out…

  • Claire says:

    Thanks, useful info. How many days ahead should I be looking to book an Iberia redemption? I saw 255 days mentioned in another comment, wondering if that’s accurate? And do seats become available at midnight Madrid time that day?

    • the real harry1 says:

      it’s max T-355 days – would definitely be a midnight somewhere! 🙂 not sure if it’s midnight CET, GMT or BST but you can easily see for yourself by staying up to 11pm onwards and checking on Iberia reward availability yourself – my hunch is it will pop up @ 11pm UK ie 12 midnight CET (but could easily be 1 am UK)

      why does this matter? Because early bird catches the worm if you want a reward flight to somewhere in hot demand

  • Andrew says:

    I was able to book return flights on Cathay Dragon (KA) on the Iberia website using the promo Avios. However, when I tried to book return flights on Royal Jordanian, the Iberia website showed an error message, so I phoned the Iberia call centre. The call lasted 40 mins as the agent said that it was ‘kind complicated’ to make the Avios reward booking (even though it was a simple return journey). I dread to think how long the call would have been if the booking involved connecting flights…

    • Optimus Prime says:

      I spent 33 minutes on the phone to simply book MAD-JFK and JFK-MAD-LGW for 2 people. All flights on IB.

  • JPV says:

    Everyone might know this already, but just in case – BA flights booked through IB+ from a US airport to a UK airport, it seems to be much cheaper to book as two one-way flights than as a return.

    As an example: ORD – EDI flying 19-04-2019 return 26-04-2019, booked as a return through IB+ in J is 118,500 Avios + £ 754.47

    The same flight booked as two one-way flights: 64,500 Avios + £ 140.10 outbound and 54,000 Avios + £ 300.37 inbound, for a total of 118500 + £440.47

    So there’s a saving of £314 on an identical itinerary. Unless there’s some disadvantage to two one-way flights that I’m not seeing?

    • the real harry1 says:

      au contraire, 2 single tickets often makes more sense for various reasons

      I think a return ticket going the other way eg EDI-ORD-ORD is possibly cheaper than 2 singles, though???

      • JPV says:

        Hrm yes it looks like a return in J going the other way is only £292 in taxes which seems a bargain!

        I am moving to the states semi-permanently this summer however…

      • the real harry1 says:

        oops EDI-ORD-EDI but I guess you worked that out!

        • JPV says:

          I did, but I guess ORD-ORD would be a very good value redemption 🙂

        • Lady London says:

          Nearly as good as EDI-GLA used to be (I was not even in the game then)

  • Lukethetraveller says:

    There is another possibly interesting way to spend them for someone – it does work for me. You can find cash premium economy ticket to New York or Chicago from many european cities via Madrid for about 650 £. Upgrade to business (off peak, where avail.) cost only 8500 avios each way. You will earn tier points and avios, you can still use avios to know the price down a bit more…

    • Tom says:

      Nice spot!

    • Marcw says:

      Careful though! Upgrades on Iberia are only valid from a flexible Premium economy fare (W), not the promotional (E). Important to read the small letters sometimes… the thing is the flexible PE is usually only a little bit cheaper than the Business Promo.

      • Lukethetraveller says:

        thanks for advice, according to some travel related blogs, any PE ticket is eligible for upgrade, so I am a bit confused. I will double check today.

  • Nick says:

    Anyone tried booking LATAM flights within South America? For example Buenos Aires to Lima is bookable through BAEC but does not show up as an option on Iberia. Would I have to call Iberia to book this? And would it have to be a return flight?

    • Marcw says:

      It has to be a return flight, no choice there.

      • Jo says:

        Can a one way be booked via phone or is it simply return flights only?

        • Marcw says:

          Return flights only. It’s in their terms and conditions

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

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