The saga of the Iberia 9,000 Avios per flight booking promo rolls on

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• Alexey says:

  9 Jul9 July 09:24

  There was another example of similar promo but with good outcome… Do you remember Accor vouchers promo? I have got 15 of them at the time and used them for my trips, and I do like honest companies who honour their deals, so I have definately compensated possible loss for Accor on that promo by staying a lot more often with them in future years that if I wouldn’t participate in promo or if the have not honoured the term

  • Rob says:

    9 Jul9 July 09:55

    Ah yes, the Accor vouchers. Seem to remember blowing mine in Luxembourg.

  • xcalx says:

    9 Jul9 July 13:01

    Remember it with fond memories. 106 in total used 3 in York sold the rest on Ebay just over £2500 net. Didn’t need the vouchers as was making great use of the expedia price guarantee coupons at the time with $50 off every night I booked. Great on our SE Asia trip.

• OverTheHorizon says:

  9 Jul9 July 09:27

  Well, I booked 10 flights using a years-old IB+ account with plenty of prior activity on it.

  All bookings went through fine, but I only received 81k Avios.

  Emailed the clasica address and got a “correctly received” response after about 48 hours, so I am going to sit tight and see what happens about the missing 9k…

  In the meantime, I have used 52,500 of the promo Avios + £113.40 for a business-class return MAD-TLV next June, on exactly the dates I wanted.

  So it has worked out pretty OK for me so far…

  • Martin says:

    9 Jul9 July 10:28

    Same for me – short of 9k and also waiting for a response. Did you by any chance have 1 of the flights billed in EUR? That was the case for me – the 1st flight was in EUR and the rest in GBP

    • max says:

      9 Jul9 July 11:47

      I’m also 9K short. However, I have 2 flights billed in EUR, so no idea why only 9K short.

      • Richmond says:

        9 Jul9 July 14:09

        In my case it’s exactly the same, two transactions in Euro, but only 9000 missing.

    • guesswho2000 says:

      9 Jul9 July 12:28

      I booked 10x, 5x in GBP, 5x in EUR, all 90,000 posted promptly in one block, so don’t think that’s an issue. I made the bookings in three separate time periods too, but all were while logged into IB+ and the number was listed in the booking from the word go.

      • Yuff says:

        9 Jul9 July 13:27

        I did my 20 bookings over 2 days whilst in Mallorca, and using a vpn. It took a while as the website kept crashing, only 13 bookings tracked for cash back but all 180k Avios points posted last week.
        A reasonable couple of hours work.
        Makes IB3166 even better value in business….
        😉

      • guesswho2000 says:

        9 Jul9 July 13:51

        One issue I didn’t experience was the website, UK/Europe was mostly asleep whilst I was booking though! My Sister experienced a lot of issues thought.

        Kind of wish I’d got the Mrs to book 10x too (by which I mean I wish I’d booked 10x flights for her), but I was on the fence, not really having much faith in IB from past hassles with Groupon et-al…

        However, I have managed to get a SIN-SYD in BA F for 68k, and the remaining 22k will (with a slight topup, and if I can get it to work) hopefully get me a MEL-SYD return in J (if I’m reading the Oneworld reward chart correctly, even Y would do, but QF A330 J is pretty nice!), so this is the deal of the year for me! Of course I need to get to SIN first, but that’s a job for another day!

    • ali says:

      9 Jul9 July 14:03

      yes, exactly the same

• PaulG says:

  9 Jul9 July 09:48

  Got mt 90K avios. As I couldn’t transfer into BAEC, I treated myself to a Business flight MAD-> LAX.
  Thinking of making HNL my actual destination. Is there anyway of adding a paid AA segment onto a redemption ticket?

  • JAXBA says:

    9 Jul9 July 12:37

    No

  • CountryKerry says:

    9 Jul9 July 21:54

    Sadly not, so ensure you leave enough positioning time!

• Ian M says:

  9 Jul9 July 10:06

  Iberia Plus…

  So I received 10 emails on Saturday from itinerary@amadeus.com regarding my 10 bookings under the promotion. At the bottom of each email it says:

  GENERAL INFORMATION
  —————————————————————————–
  DEAR CUSTOMER, RIR
  YOUR RESERVATION COULD NOT BE PROCESSED RIR
  SO THERE WILL NOT BE ANY CHARGE IN THE CREDIT CARD USED. RIR
  SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. RIR

  I’ve just checked the Iberia website and I can see that all 10 of my fights have gone. I’ve not received any refund from Iberia however, the cost of all 10 flights is still on my credit card, there’s no pending refund either! Interestingly the remaining avios that I haven’t spent yet is still showing in my IB Plus account..

  So they’ve cancelled all my flights, but kept the money and so far left me with the Avios!?

  • londonsteve says:

    9 Jul9 July 10:41

    Your Avios will for sure also vanish and refunds will be processed onto the card used for the booking. It can take quite a few days for refunds to show up in my experience. Can you tell us more about the circumstances of the booking? Did you open a new IB Plus account? Were your 10 flights an impossible to fly itinerary, e.g. 10 singles in the same direction on the same day, or even consecutive days, but with no flights back to the point of departure?

    • Ian M says:

      9 Jul9 July 10:56

      Hey, I opened my IB Plus account last year.

      All 10 bookings were on different dates, spread across November, December, January and February. All were on the same route though, Santander to Madrid.

      Considering Iberia made it very clear that you did not need to fly the booking to get the points how can they now cancel my bookings!? I wonder if they’ll cancel my redemption booking I’ve made using some of the points??

      • londonsteve says:

        9 Jul9 July 11:08

        Hmm, it looks improper of them to cancel the bookings in the first place. I guess your next steps will depend on what happens to the miles they’ve already given you and you have used. If you can keep these, they are welcome to cancel the flights you weren’t seeking to fly anyway, but I can’t see how they would give your money back and not seek to recoup the Avios. This promotion is shaping up to be an absolute PR disaster for Iberia. I will personally be resorting to legal action to recover what I believe is legally mine, I would suggest you do too in the event they strip you of your promo Avios. The hourly employee cost of labour in their legal department, not to mention the cost of potentially engaging outside counsel will far exceed the value of the Avios people are due, so they would be disadvised to play hardball with upset customers resorting to the courts. Unfortunately corporates have a history of eroding shareholder value by wasting resources on defending the indefensible, even if the company ends up out of pocket. Management seeking to save face, usually, at shareholder’s expense.

      • Ian M says:

        9 Jul9 July 11:17

        Yeah I’ll see how it plays out. If they let me keep the Avios then I’m not fussed as like you say I wasn’t really planning to take the flights anyway! But if they take the Avios and cancel my redemption booking I will definitely take things further. What is the situation with your avios?

      • londonsteve says:

        11 Jul11 July 15:42

        IT problem on their part wouldn’t accept my long-standing IB Plus number. Booked without it in the relevant field, while logged into my IB Plus account. Wrote to Clasica immediately highlighting the technical problem, sought to get my number added to the bookings, mentioned this was expressly to participate in the promotion. They added the number but said I would be excluded from the promotion, referring to terms and conditions about the IB Plus number having to be in the relevant field before booking. As far as I’m aware, there were no such express T&Cs specified, merely that you had to be identified as an IB Plus member as part of the booking process. Shabby treatment of an existing member who booked two flights in good faith, flights that I will indeed fly on. I will pursue Iberia as far as I have to.

      • the real harry1 says:

        11 Jul11 July 16:16

        But you weren’t identified as an IB plus member as part of the purchase process (just had a look at the original T&Cs and that’s what it asked). The only way you would be so identified is if your IB number was in the booking at the payment stage. Which it wasn’t.

        No wish to sound negative, but you failed to keep to the T&Cs.

        I guess your best bet now would be to go mental, making everybody at IB’s life a misery until you get your points awarded after the event as a goodwill gesture. Did you see my other post about how somebody denied the 90K points because of inconsistencies did exactly that (bombard social media, IB mgt and investors with moaning emails) & got his 90 points awarded after all?

    • londonsteve says:

      11 Jul11 July 17:29

      Harry, I do take your point and probably, technically, you are right. We are seasoned points collectors and know how these things work. Notwithstanding that, I am thinking with the mind of an ordinary consumer here; I had every intention of including my IB Plus number, tried and was thwarted by their third world IT. I did my best to correct the situation during the promotion validity period. I don’t wish to go mental or make anyone’s life a misery, but I will go straight to court and let them decide who’s being correct and/or reasonable in this process. UK courts are unlikely to side with a multinational playing a sharp game versus a consumer seeking small recompense. In any case, they would need to successfully defend the hypothesis that the IB Plus number would need to be in a certain field during the booking process. Most consumers would not appreciate this specific point unless it is spelled out in black and white in the terms and conditions, which it was not.

      • the real harry1 says:

        11 Jul11 July 17:52

        You could say you went in to the buying process whilst logged into your IB a/c and that every other time you bought a ticket that way, your IB number was always included in the booking – as indeed was the case this time (you’ll swear on oath) but the flaky IB IT threw out your IB number whilst the purchase was finalised. Under GDPR you can ask IB under subject access to provide recorded timing details of when you were logged into your IB a/c on the day in question – and when you bought the ticket is a matter of fact noted in your confirmation emails, I guess.

        But creating a fuss, emailing the CEO etc may be simpler than legal action, we’re only talking 18K points and if I were CEO getting irate emails to my office, I’d instruct some junior to sort it out pronto:
        Mr Luis Gallego lgallegom@iberia.es

  • Graham Walsh says:

    9 Jul9 July 21:23

    I had a similar issue, 4 flights were like this. My care level isn’t too high, I was not charged for the extra 4 flights, so hey ho.

• Simon says:

  9 Jul9 July 10:41

  A lot of people saying there would be no claim against IB if they offer refunds. Two points:

  1. As a consumer contract, there would be a good case to argue that the contract is governed by English law under the EU Rome I Regulation (or the law of whoever else the consumer is relevant). I do not recall the original T&Cs for the promotion saying that it would be governed by Spanish law but, even if they did, that cannot leave the consumer in a worse position than if their own law applied.

  2. Under English law, a successful claim for breach of contract entitles you to be put in the position you would have been in had the contract been performed (i.e. £200 down but 90,000 Avios up). The company in breach cannot simply offer a refund and wash their hands of it.

  If I had taken part in the promotion and not received my Avios because IB had realised they had made a mistake, decided to chance it and ignore the terms of contract, I would be sending their legal team a letter before claim.

  • Simon says:

    9 Jul9 July 10:43

    Sorry, typo:

    As a consumer contract, there would be a good case to argue that the contract is governed by English law under the EU Rome I Regulation (or the law of WHEREVER else the consumer is RESIDENT).

    • cynicalmoose says:

      9 Jul9 July 13:22

      Unfortunately not. The provision allowing a consumer to claim that the law of his country of residence applies to a contract is Article 6(1) of Rome I; but Article 6(4)(b) disapplies Article 6(1) in the case of a contract of carriage (other than a package holiday contract).

      • Simon says:

        9 Jul9 July 14:29

        Fair point, although:

        – art. 5(2) provides for the law of the passenger’s residence for contracts for carriage of passengers, unless another law chosen by the parties (and I cannot see a choice of law election in IB’s Conditions of Carriage on their website)

        – query whether the Avios promotion is governed by the conditions of carriage or rather the IB+ operation conditions (which is not a contract of carriage and, while including an election for Spanish law, cannot leave the consumer in a worse off position under art. 6(1) re. remedies)

        – It is irrelevant because, having checked, the Spanish Civil Code awards damages to compensate a party for its loss and put it in a position as if the contract had been performed (as under English law)

        So the outcome would be the same, regardless of the law governing the contract.

        In any case, you don’t need to do a conflict of laws analysis to know that a company can’t unilaterally and retrospectively impose terms and conditions after a contract has been entered into…

      • Sussex Bantam says:

        9 Jul9 July 17:11

        …and a company cannot simply cancel a contract just because it doesn’t like the terms any more unless it is impossible to perform. Or they run part of a privatised railway…

• Caroline says:

  9 Jul9 July 10:50

  Question: I’ve just logged into my Iberia Plus account and seen that the IHG 500 avios from ages ago that I’d forgotten about are now in there. I set up my account at the time of that promotion (didn’t try the recent promotion!). I’ve just tried ‘combine my avios’ to send them over to BAEC but its saying details don’t match/error when I enter my login ID and password. Is CMA just down at the moment with all the chaos or do I need to do something else to transfer the 500? I don’t seem to have ever sent ID to Iberia before so maybe this is needed to fully activate the account? Any advice appreciated! Thanks

  • sunguy says:

    9 Jul9 July 11:08

    Your email address MUST be exactly the same, along with your name and primary address.

    Make sure these things are exactly matching and try again – you may need to call IB to confirm the changes.

  • Jo says:

    9 Jul9 July 12:37

    Keep trying. CMA was down at different times the last week. Finally managed to get my 500 from both accounts over late last night. Totally forgot about the ihg promo

• Fadi says:

  9 Jul9 July 10:58

  I seem to be the unluckiest then. My account is years old and has had activity.

  I booked for 90k and received only 9k as promptly as others who received 90k.

  So now I’m chasing for the 81k. I have spoken to IB by phone who have looked at my bookings and said ‘everything looks fine’ but it clearly isn’t.

  If anyone has a contact to escalate this I’d be very happy.

• Pug206 says:

  9 Jul9 July 11:12

  If using IB points to book flights for 3 people, one being the IB account holder, do I need to add the names of the other two anywhere on IB+ account?

  Just remember reading somewhere about having to add beneficiaries. I’ve Googled but not getting a correct hit.

  TIA

  • Pug206 says:

    9 Jul9 July 14:01

    Found it and you don’t have to add:

    “Yes. You can name beneficiaries (which you can change whenever you like) of your Iberia Plus card so that they may use your Avios to benefit from any of the services of the Programme without your having to accompany them.

    We also offer you the option of using your Avios to buy airline tickets for whoever you wish to accompany you on your travels, without the need to have first included them as a beneficiary on your Iberia Plus card.

    If you like you can update your list of beneficiaries directly from your Personal Area on Iberia.com > My Iberia Plus > My card > My Beneficiaries.”

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