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.

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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:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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.

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.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

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.

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.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.