Bits: BA sets the lawyers on data breach complainants, have you spent your 90,000 Iberia Avios?, Flying Blue flash sale

News in brief:

British Airways sending legal letters to data breach complainants

A Head for Points reader sent me an interesting letter he had received after writing to British Airways to request compensation for the recent data breach.

Instead of responding directly, British Airways passed his complaint to DWF, a Manchester law firm.  He received a firm legal letter from an Andrew Harris at DWF which whilst totally correct in what it said was – to my mind – designed to scare the complainant off from pursuing any claim.

Since Harris is:

“Accomplished in significant shareholder disputes and other corporate litigation” (2011), –one of the best commercial litigators outside London” (2012) and –the standout choice for shareholder disputes” (2013).”

…. according to the “Legal 500”, it is likely that it will have cost British Airways £1,000 in legal fees to get Harris to write the fairly long letter sent to the reader telling him that he can’t have anything …..

Have you spent your 90,000 Iberia Plus Avios?

The craziest frequent flyer deal of this year – or possibly any recent year – was the offer that BA’s sister airline ran in June.  You can read our coverage here.

Iberia offered 9,000 Avios for every flight you booked over a four day period.  Importantly, the 9,000 Avios credited immediately and you would not be penalised for not flying the flights.

You were capped at 90,000 Avios per account, which most people were able to achieve for £250 or less.  Frequent flyers bought literally every seat that Iberia was offering over the next 12 months for under €25!

There was one snag.  The Avios would expire on 1st December if not spent.  And 1st December is almost here ….

Many people transferred their Avios out of Iberia Plus into British Airways.  Iberia initially resisted this but a joint approach between HFP and The Mail on Sunday got this reversed.

If your 90,000 Avios are still in Iberia Plus and unspent you have a few choices.  I don’t really want to give advice on what to do – you need to take your own view.  Either:

Move your Avios from Iberia Plus to British Airways Executive Club.  You may need to open a new avios.com account via the Aer Lingus website to do this, using avios.com as a middle man (IB to avios.com, avios.com to BA) as direct Iberia to BA transfers tend to hit IT issues. I would imagine that Iberia cannot reclaim your Avios from British Airways Executive Club.  Or can they ….?

Redeem them via Iberia Plus for a flight on Iberia.  There are some exceptional bargains, such as New York for just 68,000 Avios and £175 in tax in Business Class from Madrid.  You don’t get such low taxes booking Iberia flights via ba.com.  Learn more about redeeming Avios on Iberia here.

Redeem them via Iberia Plus for a flight on BA.  You will pay the same taxes and charges as you do via ba.com.

Redeem them via Iberia Plus for a oneworld partner flight.  You must be VERY careful here as oneworld partner flights booked using Iberia Plus miles are non-refundable and non-changeable.

Redeem them via Iberia Plus for a hotel booking.  This is not a bad deal – whilst your hotel stay will not qualify for status benefits or hotel loyalty points, your 90,000 Avios will get you around £500 of hotel rooms which means you will be doubling the £250 or less you paid for the Avios in the first place.

I genuinely have no idea what will happen on 2nd December to anyone who keeps their miles in Iberia Plus (I am pretty sure they will be removed) or who has moved them to BA.  The only way to be certain you won’t have any trouble is to redeem them via Iberia Plus in the next two weeks.

Flying Blue launches a flash redemption sale

Flying Blue has launched a three day redemption sale across KLM and Air France.

Details are here.  You need to book by Friday for travel between 1st January and 31st March.

It is fairly restricted with the stand-out deal being Toronto at 70,000 miles return.  Some of the short-haul details are also interesting, eg Edinburgh to Amsterdam for 8,000 miles return, although in general the savings only bring Flying Blue in line with standard Avios off-peak pricing.

How to earn Flying Blue miles via UK credit cards

As a reminder, Air France and KLM do not have a UK Flying Blue credit card.  However, you can earn Flying Blue miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.  These are:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold – 10,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus

The Platinum Card from American Express – 30,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus

American Express Rewards credit card – up to 5,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Flying Blue miles.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Flying Club mile.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for the latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios from current offers and promotions.)

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