Iberia joins the British Airways and Qatar Airways joint venture

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• Ben says:

  26 Jul26 July 08:23

  So essentially the JV is enforcing a change of plane to fly to many/most Asia routes for IAG customers.

  • Rhys says:

    26 Jul26 July 08:27

    The alternative is that the majority of these routes wouldn’t be available, not that BA or Iberia fly them themselves.

    • Nick says:

      26 Jul26 July 08:31

      Hmmm. Some routes yes, that’s definitely true. But it’s also true that the 25% shareholding does allow them to direct network strategy… and not always in the best way for customers. For BA particularly there are routes that should exist today but don’t/can’t as a result.

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:

    26 Jul26 July 13:06

    And I wouldn’t have it any other way! Love a DOH connection or stopover; great lounging opportunities and 2 flights rather than 1 means 2 full meals rather than 1 long flight with 1 full meal and 1 pre-landing tiddly plate

    • Thegasman says:

      26 Jul26 July 13:57

      Ahh, the allure of the zombie apocalypse vibes of Al Mourjan packed full of sleep deprived passengers at 3AM!

      I’d take a non stop with no catering over a 2 sides of a triangle routing with 2 legs that aren’t long enough to get a decent sleep but each to their own!

      • Numpty says:

        26 Jul26 July 14:49

        +1

        I’d farther get a decent amount of sleep in the business class bed i’ve ‘paid’ for as opposed to another meal at 3 am (or the smell and noise of everyone else eating). I used to always get a great sleep on BA long haul to Asia, just not possible with ME stopover.

        • Lady London says:

          26 Jul26 July 18:07

          +1
          Interesting to see the above comment that it’s Qatar that’s pulling this so that they can fill their planes to Doha and make Qatar big and glorious as a hub.

          A lot falls into place now.

          But as also commented, everyone’s sleep is now ruined going East due to the awful timing of the connections in Doha plus having to break a journey to Asia that naturally fills a day or a night.

          And even if you choose to pay a higher ticket price to get a decent shortish connection in Doha at a civilised time, too many reports are emerging that especially if you’re not in one of the higher booking classes within your Cabin, or if you’re on an award ticket, Qatar will force your connection in Doha to become tiringly long. And/or move you to a connecting fflight that *still* departs in that horrible bank in the 2 or 3 hours just after midnight. Even if you paid more to avoid that timing when you booked.

          I don’t like it, and I don’t like where this is going.

• riku says:

  26 Jul26 July 08:49

  Finnair has a similar partnership with Qatar (although called a “strategic partnership” not a joint venture). The strangest thing is that the seats on the Finnair flight to Doha are blocked according to who sold the tickets, so you are limited to certain rows with a Finnair ticket and the other rows are for Qatar ticket holders (this applies to business and economy).
  The worst thing is that Qatar does not have premium economy but Finnair does, but the premium economy seats on the finnair planes are part of the Qatar economy seat allocation!

• G says:

  26 Jul26 July 09:07

  Hat tip to loyaltylobby?

  • Rob says:

    26 Jul26 July 10:23

    I was sent the press release four times – QR comms, BA comms, BA trade, IB trade!

    • Alex G says:

      26 Jul26 July 11:15

      Although I saw the story a couple of times yesterday, Rob’s report explained it better than any of the others I read.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    26 Jul26 July 12:45

    You don’t hat tip an article on another site that’s basically a cut and past of a press release with no added analysis or information,

• jumpfrog says:

  26 Jul26 July 10:11

  Might seem like a dumb question but why does BA bother flying to Doha? I took a flight in January and the plane was half empty. Although it is a new 787-10 with CS it still doesn’t compare the the Qatar offering and service. Wish they would use the plane to serve somewhere else further East. Presumably they have some sort of sharing agreement with Qatar on the route

  • Chris W says:

    26 Jul26 July 10:17

    I’ve always wondered this. I assume its because Qatar can’t get anymore Heathrow slots so arrange for BA to operate an extra flight so it easy money for them.

    Its also easy to operate a return daily flight with a single aircraft. Resurrecting, say, KUL instead would require two aircraft.

    • Rob says:

      26 Jul26 July 10:27

      BA flight is from Gatwick and it leaves at virtually the same time as the Qatar flight. Unsurprising few book it! BA gets paid either way of course.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      26 Jul26 July 14:06

      BA would likely lease a slot to QR if it was that vital to have another QR flight. BA have plenty of slots they’d rather not have to use themselves and it releases pressure on their ops.

      But if imagine the outrage if BA did stop flying to DOH and all the comments about BA not caring about the middle east etc etc

  • Rob says:

    26 Jul26 July 10:20

    Earlier comments imply that it is a prestige thing for Qatar to have a BA plane there. Some customers may also prefer to be on a BA plane for part of their trip.

    • Paul says:

      26 Jul26 July 10:44

      Yes, but only until the flown with Qatar surely??

      • Rob says:

        26 Jul26 July 10:54

        Obviously!

        • SamG says:

          26 Jul26 July 13:51

          To be honest vs a QR 787 in economy there isn’t much in it – most people down the back will go for price & schedule. The Qatar LGW “dupe” of BA seems to only run for the peak summer months. QR has recently been too expensive for my work travel vs other options but I do notice the LGW flight is usually the cheapest in J so it keeps QR seats for higher yielding demand perhaps.

          I’m not sure how many people in reality it impacts but many employers will only offer E or PE for flights under 8hrs, in which case you’d want to take BA WT+ vs QR economy.

          Otherwise I imagine it could be a good route for upgrades WT-WTP – can’t see how they’ve got any way to actually sell many seats if QR doesn’t sell them for connecting flights

      • Lady London says:

        26 Jul26 July 18:10

        or EU261 eligibility on the return if a BA aircraft.

    • JamesJ says:

      27 Jul27 July 18:36

      Is it not a condition of the joint venture that both airlines have to fly the route, DOH in this case for both BA and Iberia?

      That’s why I thought BA started the halfhearted Gatwick service.

      As stated by previous posters Im sure Qatar could have whatever slots they wanted to lease of BA at LHR.

      Would save BA all the slot sitting it needs to do when they currently have more slots than aircraft to operate them.

      • Rob says:

        27 Jul27 July 19:46

        There could well be some requirement – after all, it’s probably not a joint venture if the core carrier doesn’t fly part of it! It is a bit weird when you think about it – of the 60 countries in the JV, I suspect Iberia currently flies to only a handful, and potentially NONE of them (Japan can’t be in it because of BA’s existing JAL JV and that is Iberia’s main Asian route).

        60 new countries will be bookable on the Iberia website, and 2/3rd of the flights shown will be all-Qatar operated, with 1/3rd on Iberia for the first leg to Doha from Madrid …..

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:

    26 Jul26 July 13:08

    No one’s complaining when DOH Avios availability is abundant compared to DXB 🤫

• Redhroogar says:

  26 Jul26 July 10:14

  I’m still unclear how to combine my huge Avios stash with BA with my negligible amount at IB+. Tried various links but always get indecipherable error messages.
  HELP!

  • Rob says:

    26 Jul26 July 10:19

    You need to ensure all personal data and emails match across both accounts. Should then be fine. Double barrel names can be a mess depending on how you filled in ‘first / second surname’ at IB originally.

  • Neil says:

    26 Jul26 July 20:41

    You need to make sure you fill in all of your personal details in the Iberia account and that they match BA. I’d suggest opening the personal details section on Iberia and making sure that there isn’t any info missing (stupidly it lets you open an Iberia account without requiring this to be fully populated but it won’t let you transfer avios if certain boxes are left empty).

    It is likely to be a missing home address as it wouldn’t let me transfer miles until I put one in (I called and asked customer service to try and figure out why it wouldn’t work). There’s also a glitch that the postal code only takes numbers and that’s a required field to allow you to save the address page so I just put in the numbers from my postcode and it worked fine after that. This has been an issue for a number of other people on these forums as well so hopefully doing this sorts it for you also!

• Paul says:

  26 Jul26 July 10:15

  This JV is anti competitive and not in the interest of the consumer. By allowing this air fares are artificially inflated and products and service depleted.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    26 Jul26 July 12:49

    AA only put flat beds on JV transatlantic routes because it was a condition of them joining it. I’d call that a customer benefit.

  • Blair Waldorf Salad says:

    26 Jul26 July 13:10

    The LH Group control most of central and eastern Europe via a formal ownership structure. So it’s no different in terms of outcome. OW JV airlines’ cabins are far superior to LH Group so let’s be thankful for that. One trick is to play these giants at their own game. Start from a LH Group hub but fly on OW. And vice versa. Prices can be very pleasing.

    • Mikeact says:

      26 Jul26 July 17:32

      That applies to most competitive hubs…the US as well. Always try and ‘start’ where your home carrier is the ‘minnow’ at a competitive alliance airport….can also work for Awards, if it means lower mileage requirements.

• Chris W says:

  26 Jul26 July 10:20

  I’ve always thought of Volotea an an Italian airline

  • ChrisBCN says:

    26 Jul26 July 10:46

    It’s a bit different to most airlines in that they don’t have one big hub, instead having multiple bases mostly across France, Spain, Italy, Greece. Although they are based in Barcelona, they don’t have many routes (13, same as Catania) and most are to their other hubs – I’m not even sure that they have any planes based there. Compare with Athens and Lyon which both have more than 30 routes.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    26 Jul26 July 10:50

    Well I hadn’t heard of them until I moved to Bologna, but when I booked with them I discovered they were Spanish. This was back in 2021 but the on-board style of service reminded me of bmi for some reason.

  • ADS says:

    26 Jul26 July 18:45

    dipping your toe into the London market with just two flights a week (to Gatwick) – doesn’t sound very Italian !

• Geoff says:

  26 Jul26 July 11:16

  What is the best way to close down an existing Iberia account? Asking for a friend who is sitting on a minus 90k balance!

  • David says:

    26 Jul26 July 12:51

    I thought they would have expired after 3 years. Like everyone else’s had.

    • Lady London says:

      26 Jul26 July 13:47

      Yeah you’d think so wouldn’t you. After all, Iberia will snatch away any positive balance very promptly from you after 3 years dormant.

      But nope, mysteriously, Iberia does not make negative balances disappear at all. Strange, that.

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

        26 Jul26 July 14:37

        LL – see the very specific circumtances where IB has taken a hard line on this outlined below.

      • yorkieflyer says:

        26 Jul26 July 16:38

        Not really, I played the game and spent mine in IB, I remember the games and whining from others who wouldn’t

        • Lady London says:

          26 Jul26 July 18:17

          I spent mine in IB too but then IB messed around its flightd completely making my itinerary unworkable hours on the phone agents were prepared to help but IB management blocked them, and the only way to save my Christmas trip was move the milea out to BA, pay 25 000 extra miles and fly First with BA instead!

          Am still mega-****ed off with IB for that after all these years.

        • Londonsteve says:

          28 Jul28 July 10:05

          If the T&Cs said it had to be spent in IB, I’m impressed that some people had the front to transfer them out to another scheme (less surprised that IB IT made this possible, but you’d think they’d have attended to this little issue upfront before launching the offer). I’m surprised that some were surprised that they’d have the points retrospectively stripped from them for a flagrant breach of the T&Cs and I’m also not surprised that IB doesn’t want to let it go, in that a negative 90k balance is not small sum of money. Perhaps the price for the ‘right to be forgotten’ will be buying 90k with Avios Booster and transferring them to IB to zero the balance and allow the accounts to be closed?

  • Londonsteve says:

    26 Jul26 July 13:54

    How the heck do you end up with MINUS 90k Avios balance? Surely you can only book a reward if you’ve got a positive Avios balance to start with?

    • Thegasman says:

      26 Jul26 July 14:15

      From the Iberia promo about 4 years ago where you could buy a €15 one way Spanish domestic flight & get a 9,000 Avios up front even if you never set foot on the plane.

      People were opening accounts in the name of imaginary relatives & pets collecting the 90k Avios & then transferring to BAEC household accounts. According to T&C’s you couldn’t transfer bonus points out although it was technically possible. If you did transfer out then at the end point the bonus points were cancelled leaving a negative balance in Iberia.

      There was a lot of debate at the time as to what would happen long term with negative balances with many saying they would disappear or they would just sacrifice their Iberia accounts. It seems Iberia (perhaps understandably) aren’t prepared to let it go!

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      26 Jul26 July 14:18

      There was some complicated offer in around 2018 involving bonus IB avios on certain routes and lots of people earned 90k avios which they then transferred to BA.

      The points were supposed to be used by a certain date on IB flights only and any points that weren’t were to deleted from your IB account. so if you had earned 90k avios on these IB flights they deducted 90k from your IB account in many case leaving a negative balance.

      • Londonsteve says:

        28 Jul28 July 09:58

        Wow, that was quite the deal. So, if you booked IB flights from your IB account, you were within the terms of the offers and therefore you didn’t end up with a minus balance? Personally, I’d have done that and enjoyed £900 worth of unexpected (and virtually free) Avios. Not least because 90,000 (plus a little cash) gets you to Rio and back. What a blinder of an offer.

  • Numpty says:

    26 Jul26 July 14:54

    change some of your details in Iberia account so that they dont match Avios account, just in case. You can email Iberia and ask them to close account and delete all your info in accordance with GPDR (which is an EU regulation).

    • Lady London says:

      26 Jul26 July 18:19

      Anyone got an email address at Iberia for that please?

      • Lady London says:

        27 Jul27 July 09:36

        Others have deleted their data with Iberi ages ago in similar circumtances successfully and it’s time I got round to it.

        I’d appreciate if anyone can inform the correct email so I can finally remove my annoyance with IB

    • Thegasman says:

      27 Jul27 July 07:10

      That’s not necessarily a slam dunk. They can keep details that are relevant otherwise GDPR would be a free pass to dodge debts. Whether a negative Avios balance fulfils the criteria to be exempt from deletion I don’t know.

  • Mikeact says:

    26 Jul26 July 17:35

    That was a great Iberia offer !!

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