Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

You now pay the same taxes on Iberia Avios flights whether you book via BA or Iberia

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I don’t know when this happened, given that no-one has been booking Iberia redemption flights for much of the past two years, but there has been a big improvement.

Historically, taxes and charges were substantially lower when you booked Iberia Avios flights via iberia.com.

This was great if you were in the know, but a bit unfair if you weren’t. Even if you were in the know, you still had to open an Iberia Plus account, ‘activate’ it by earning an Avios or waiting 90 days, transfer your Avios across from British Airways Executive Club via the error-prone ‘Combine My Avios’ tool and then – if you had to make changes – try to get hold of someone at Iberia.

Those days seem to be over, thank goodness.

Iberia Avios

Taxes and charges now seem to be equalised between bookings on ba.com via British Airways Executive Club and iberia.com via Iberia Plus.

In fact, ba.com can actually be cheaper.

Let’s look at Business Class

Here is an example. Look at a return business class flight from Madrid to New York.

Via iberia.com:

Via ba.com:

The taxes are charges are the same at £212 return (yes, £212 return – over £600 cheaper than booking London to New York on BA where the taxes are now £800+).

You will also notice that, off peak, Madrid to New York in Business Class is only 68,000 Avios return. This compares with 100,000 Avios on an off-peak BA flight.

This is due to a quirk in the Iberia Avios redemption chart for Zone 5 redemptions, which covers the US East Coast:

To add extra complication, Iberia has different peak and off-peak dates to British Airways. You can see the 2022 and 2023 off-peak and peak Avios dates in this article. Importantly, even if you book on ba.com, Iberia flights stil price off the Iberia peak and off-peak timetable and off the Iberia price chart.

Premium Economy flights are even a little cheaper via ba.com

Oddly, given how many years we have been advising readers to book Iberia flights on iberia.com due to lower charges, Premium Economy flights – at least to New York – are now a little cheaper with BA.

Take a look here at iberia.com:

…. and here at ba.com:

You save £17 when booking via British Airways Executive Club.

Economy flights may still be cheaper via Iberia

When booking Economy tickets on Iberia using Avios, you should still take a look at iberia.com.

Iberia offers two types of Avios redemption in Economy – ‘Blue Class’ and ‘Economy Class’. Both book into the same seat with the same fare rules. This means that you will often find that iberia.com is still showing availability when ba.com is not.

With this one exception though, the good news is that it appears you no longer need to navigate Iberia Plus, iberia.com and – if you need to make changes – the Iberia call centre in order to cash in on the excellent value offered by Iberia redemptions with Avios.

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.

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.

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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.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Iberia and Iberia Plus

Comments (64)

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

  • Paul says:
    16 Jun16 June 05:29

    So basically Iberia has increased the taxes they charge on Iberia.com? Certain routes have had quite a jump in price compared to a few weeks ago.

    • Rob says:
      16 Jun16 June 08:26

      There is an element of meeting in the middle. New York was historically £160ish.

      • TGLoyalty says:
        17 Jun17 June 08:25

        Let’s not forget some fees and taxes are in local currencies which are at all time highs vs the £

  • David Cliff says:
    16 Jun16 June 05:42

    This is amazing ! I need to get to SJU in April 2024 to join a repositioning Virgin Voyage SJU-LIS, just looking at prices for next year, its coming up on ba.com as 34000 Avios and just £104 … per person, in Business !! 👍

    • TimM says:
      16 Jun16 June 06:35

      I have pointed out in the past that one-way long-haul to join or leave a repo cruise, from or to Europe, with a cheap cash connecting flight from the UK, is the absolute optimum use of points.

      • WaynedP says:
        16 Jun16 June 08:49

        Certainly also the case for me & Mrs dP needing to return to UK after a repositioning cruise from Southampton to Genoa later this year, so not just long haul.

        Been watching one-way CE fares for a while and nothing below £340 shown or expected to show.

        Imagine my surprise at being able to book flexible tickets for 23,500 Avios plus £25 for both of us. At first I was convinced it was pricing up for one not two pax.

        Remarkable value, and Avios fully covered by a generous award from BA customer services following my feedback about a faulty Club World seat on recent return flight from JNB.

        £25 barely buys me two return daily commutes into London these days.

        • IanT says:
          16 Jun16 June 10:28

          We’ve done very similar over the years on repo cruises…SJU, GIG, PTY, MIA, DXB, HND, etc.

          It’s the best use of points by far.

  • Simon says:
    16 Jun16 June 06:03

    But do you still have to book a separate ticket out to Madrid – i.e. if you book a through ticket from london via Madrid is everything still charged at the BA rates?

    • Rob says:
      16 Jun16 June 08:25

      No, Iberia rates but taxes shoot up due to £180 of Air Passenger Duty.

    • Craig V says:
      16 Jun16 June 09:16

      I always get two separate tickets so as to avoid the APD. Just bear in mind the time needed in MAD to go through immigration in T4S, then take the train to the main terminal to pick up the bags and check in again. Allow three hours in case the passport queue is horrendous.

      • lumma says:
        16 Jun16 June 11:26

        If you’re saving £180, I’d have a night in Madrid on the outbound

    • David Cliff says:
      16 Jun16 June 16:30

      We can all jump on a Ryanair for that segment of the trip !

  • qrfan says:
    16 Jun16 June 06:42

    Bear in mind that cash prices from Spain to north America are very cheap, so you’re still not getting exorbitant value. £1250 per person j to NYC available outside holidays. If you account for the avios earned and tier points it’s not a slam dunk to redeem in this way.

  • EvilGazebo says:
    16 Jun16 June 07:00

    This is also helpful if you have deleted your Iberia account which was -90k overdrawn because reasons 🙂

    • Martin says:
      16 Jun16 June 11:47

      Wasn’t a need to delete, even accounts with negative balance reset..
      Mine back to zero balance

      • EvilGazebo says:
        16 Jun16 June 12:17

        Really? I waited a pretty long time in case that happened. Apparently not long enough 🙄

  • marcw says:
    16 Jun16 June 07:31

    The difference between “Blue Class” and “Economy Class” is that “Economy Class” can be changed and refunded without penalty. All other awards IB awards, 25€.

    • Erico1875 says:
      16 Jun16 June 07:42

      Considering BA charge £35 for Avios amendments outside of BWC €25 is decent

      • meta says:
        16 Jun16 June 07:45

        But good luck getting your Avios immediately from Iberia. It takes a minimum of two weeks for them to be redeposited. So if the price is now the same, I’d book on ba.com.

        • marcw says:
          16 Jun16 June 08:00

          You can kindly ask if they could post your Avios immediately as you want to make another Avios booking. Usually it works.

          • meta says:
            16 Jun16 June 08:21

            The last two times they refused for me. They said it has to go back to the back office. The only thing that they can do is change the dates on the same route and for the same passengers.

          • Lady London says:
            16 Jun16 June 11:34

            Weirdly, I found both the two incidences of quite good customer service I ever had with Iberia, to have been when calling earlyish in the day on Saturday.

    • Rob says:
      16 Jun16 June 08:22

      Thank you.

  • yonasl says:
    16 Jun16 June 07:49

    Recently booked an IB flight on BA’s website. Then called IB to add some services for a handicapped passenger. IB answer is that they cannot do it as it … wait for it … “a BA flight”. BA obviously says they have nothing to do with it and IB has to log and provide the service on board their plane. Conclusion is disabled passenger may be unable to fly. If anyone knows a court or group that takes care of airlines denying boarding to disabled passenger for no reason please let me know so I can escalate. Thank you!

    • Phillip says:
      16 Jun16 June 08:17

      Sounds like you got a lazy agent! I would call again and if you get the same message insist that it’s an IB operated flight despite it being issued by BA and that IB are responsible!

      • yonasl says:
        16 Jun16 June 09:42

        Spoken with at least 10 or more Iberia people. One cut me when I started insisting, another said the service had been added correctly (just for me to call again and be told nothing had been done), another told me to cancel my flight and book directly with Iberia (at a higher price) so they can add the “extra service”, another added a note to the booking that does nothing, I could continue but as you can see it is not a matter of one lazy person!
        Btw, this would be resolved if I indeed just made the booking directly with Iberia but that’s not excuse for not allowing a disabled person to fly and have a normal life.

    • SamG says:
      16 Jun16 June 08:38

      Do you have the IB PNR? It’s 5 digits, you’ll see it at the bottom of the page you see whilst being transferred to IB website to select seats. If you use this I suspect you’ll be able to request it by logging in on iberia.com

      • yonasl says:
        16 Jun16 June 09:39

        I have both the BA and IB PNR. I have given them both and in all cases the answer is the same: computer says no.
        The BA people cannot do much … the IB customer service are utterly useless!

    • Lady London says:
      16 Jun16 June 11:30

      ….or even not got around to deleting it 🙂

      Also, more importantly, it lets you still book your ticket to fly on Iberia, by booking with BA, thus avoiding Iberia’s awful customer service should things go wrong. You are also not subject to Iberia’s rule that they won’t ever refund any avios booking unless on IB or BA, should you need to cancel and have other airlines’ flights on your ticket

    • marcw says:
      16 Jun16 June 11:49

      You should be able to add assistance in “Mange my booking”. Go to the “Passengers” section of “Manage your booking”. At the end of each passenger, you will find “Special assistance” and an “Add’ button.
      Alternatively, you may also use this website https://necesidades-especiales.iberia.com/?idioma=EN

  • Mikeact says:
    16 Jun16 June 08:37

    This is excellent news to book via BA although I would still double check , and to start from Madrid to the US is easy, via RFS from London.

    • SamG says:
      16 Jun16 June 08:40

      Often with Iberia you can book through to the UK without a big hike in T&F on the return leg which makes life easier when you just want to get home!

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