Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

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.

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 (October 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 – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 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

10,000 points bonus – plus an extra 500 points for our readers 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

Up to 80,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

Get up to 40,000 points as a sign-up offer 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 (181)

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

  • Tim says:

    I jumped on this offer using a 6 month old unused IB account (I opened it following advice from this site); I was credited with the 90k avios and just got around to booking MAD-MIA return in business for 85k and £170 in taxes which is a great result!

  • Galwaygirl says:

    After reading realharry comment I did write an email to mr Luis of Iberia, just within 10hours I received a direct tweet from Iberia saying…

    Due to high volume of requests it’s going to take long time and ask me to wait for their email……. I’m new IB account holder and did provided the passport verification and email confirmation in details… 10 days and still nothing else.

    • Carolynmf says:

      Just had an email unlocking my account and saying that they are forwarding my information to award the points, however they have changed me to a MR. At the same time they emailed my husband and said his information did not agree, so he can cancel his flights.

      • the real harry1 says:

        There are hundreds of joyous people shouting today about getting their 90K points on the other FF blogs! 🙂

        Good luck you guys – but looking good! (Got our 180K a while back, old a/cs).

  • Simon Parker says:

    Gits:

    Dear Mr. PARKER:

    Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconveniences we may have caused you for not being able to respond until today the e-mail you sent us few days ago.

    We correctly received your documentation. However, we are sorry to inform you that the details of your identification document do not match your Iberia Plus account information. Therefore, it is not possible for us to activate your account.

    If you wish to cancel any of the tickets you bought for the promotion, you may do so free of charge on this exceptional occasion by sending us the ticket number (which begins with 075) before the 31st of July (Spanish Time – UTC/GMT +2 hours).

    Kind Regards
    Your Iberia Plus Service Center.”

    I know for sure I have sent the correct information, so I assume my only recourse now is to get the tickets refunded?

    Thanks for the ride, Iberia!

    • James says:

      I would reply back with a screenshot of your Iberia plus account details and your passport showing they match. That is what I did and they credited my avios OK.

  • Simon Parker says:

    Already did that, a week and a bit ago.
    I think it’s because it’s a new account, that I spun up for the points offer.

    • James says:

      I did the exact same thing but still got the points. Some people have had luck by contacting upper management at Iberia.

      • the real harry1 says:

        Sometimes they find a mismatch between your IB user name (first name + family name) vs your passport, which contains any middle names.

        Then use this to say ID does not check out.

        Yes – email the IB execs to get this sorted

        • the real harry1 says:

          Have a read of the Flyertalk Iberia forum threads on this subject

  • Carolynmf says:

    Well been awarded my points on a new account and 200 welcome ones, but cant use them. I have 27200 so was trying to use them for hotel bookings, but they will not go through. Have contacted them, passed to someone else. will see what the outcome is. I have a bit of time.

  • Peter says:

    I’m trying to book hotels on the Iberia site using Avios. Something odd is going on – yesterday there were loads of hotels available for Torremelinos and Cadiz, now there is just one for each location. Aside from why I might even want to stay in Torre, does anyone know what’s going on? I’m looking for early September but if I look right through to December, it’s the same story. How could loads of hotels be available yesterday and just one for each of those locations today?!

    • Peter says:

      i spoke too soon – they’re back now. What a wasted lunch hour, Interestingly, one that was priced at 23K Avios is suddenly 46K Avios but I guess you can’t really believe anything on the Iberia Avios site.

  • Carolynmf says:

    Well managed to get my hotel bookings through this morning using the bonus Avios. Happy!

  • Simonpa says:

    Soo..

    After a week of IB saying that ‘your details don’t match’ and me saying, ‘yes they do – what doesn’t match on your system?’, plus ‘escalate this to a complaint’, they mailed me last night with a new PIN..
    …and now they’ve dropped in the points..

    Perseverance rewarded.

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