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

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The saga of the ‘9,000 Avios for booking any Iberia flight, however cheap, and you don’t need to fly it’ promotion (see our article here) continues to rumble on.

People with long-term Iberia Plus accounts have received their Avios, in the main.  However, anyone who opened a new Iberia Plus account over the four days of the promotion is in a different situation.

Most people who opened a new account have been contacted by Iberia and asked to provide a passport scan and copies of their ticket receipts.  It was assumed that this was for fraud verification purposes, to ensure that people had not been opening accounts under fake names.

Iberia 9000 Avios promotion

Many (all?) people who do provide this data are now getting a follow-up email from Iberia saying that ‘inconsistencies’ have been seen in their bookings.  Due to these unspecified ‘inconsistencies’ no Avios will be awarded.  The flights booked can be cancelled but only by directly contacting Iberia to request it.

It seems that people who provide a passport copy but not ticket receipts are not getting this message – but I wouldn’t hold out much hope of getting a different end result.

This move is the first sign that Iberia may have messed up here and is desperately looking for a way out.  I admit that I was surprised that the Avios for long-term members dropped in so promptly, but given that Iberia had taken to the airwaves to encourage people to book I doubt they had a choice.

A view may have been taken that the airline has little to lose by telling people who only joined up in order to take advantage of this offer to take a hike …..


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 (183)

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

  • Antonio says:

    If anyone who has tickets can no longer make it tonight, I’ll happily buy two tickets from you. Leave a reply!

  • Steve R says:

    The other thing about putting IB’s legal team on standby – The papers can be served at their registered UK address in West Drayton

  • Clive says:

    OT – Anyone been able to transfer small Accor balances to Iberia recently and can explain the process please

  • Alan says:

    Completely OT but this is “Bits” after all….

    Anyone know when MBNA will be sending out the Horizon cards to replace the Virgin cards?

    • EvilGazebo says:

      I wondered that – the card is all set up in my online account with a number assigned but no sign of any plastic.

      • Alan says:

        My VS a/c has changed to Horizon but AA one still ticking along – should have a couple more weeks left on it, which I’m making the most of! Weird seeing transactions post individually though – wonder if they’re doing that to make it easier to remove them if transactions cancelled??

    • MrB says:

      I seem to think it is as late as September

    • Louise says:

      Letter says October

    • paulm says:

      They told someone by early August on Twitter but current virgin cards get cash back from today

  • Jtz says:

    I have an old account and only booked 2 flights but only got one batch of 9000 points…

  • Czechoslovakia says:

    Took a punt and received my 90k avios, booked Sunday lunchtime, in GBP, logged in, old account with running small balance from accor stays. Booked prg-lhr-jfk on the days I wanted using a few more avios from BAEC, as they only had availability in first outbound (shame). I find it truly bizzare IB would attempt a promo like this purely because of the downright flakiness of their entire web platform. I mean really, how can you an airline website with so many problems? Dead links, time outs, hang ups, incompatability with browsers, random language changes? A lot of people seem to be missing a few chunks of 9k, and I’d put money on the reason being you were logged out after 20 minutes, without notification. Happened to me, but I noticed because the website changed language. Despite logging out physically, it wouldn’t let me sign in again, but still showed my details at the top. Had to close the session/cookies to get in again. This happened twice after 20 minutes.

    • Pup says:

      Thanks – very helpful information about the automatic time out of 20 mins and sounds like you might have the real reason spot on.
      Me – old account, new browser booking, 10 flights, 81,000 Avios.
      Partner – old account, been browsing for a while, 10 flights, zero Avios.

      Hmmm. Should be simple to rectify IF they were sticking to their own T&C’s…..

  • Mike P says:

    As I posted above, I’ve got a ticket for this evening’s party which I’m unfortunately not likely to be able to use. If someone would like it then please post on here.

  • Gumshoe says:

    Rob – I take it you are/will be following up with the Iberia marketing team given you were promised, in writing, that (a) the promotional Avios would be honoured for everyone who fulfilled the terms of the promotion, and (b) the promotional Avios would be transferable to BAEC?

    It’ll be very interesting to hear what they’ve got to say if, as it seems, they’re reneging on a written guarantee.

    • Pup says:

      Rob – I might have missed it but did you actually take part in the end? And if so have you been awarded the Avios?

    • Rob says:

      It wasn’t a written guarantee. It was an email addressed to me and Anika, which technically means that only Anika and myself have any legal rights with respect to it. You can’t sue Iberia based on something that Iberia promised me. The words ‘for publication’ do not appear in the email, which whilst a legal technicality is, legally, an issue.

      • New Card says:

        IIRC Iberia’s twitter account essentially posted this information (as a reply to someone asking)… but I could be misremembering, and haven’t the time to go back and check now.

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