Where can you fly on Iberia with your BA Amex 2-4-1 companion voucher?

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• Tony says:

  14 Jan14 January 06:14

  Perfect example of “Rip Off Britain”!

  • Can2 says:

    14 Jan14 January 10:46

    More so “rip off London”

    • PeteM says:

      14 Jan14 January 10:58

      Perfect example of capitalism and what the market will take, no?

    • JDB says:

      14 Jan14 January 12:19

      London/SE has the richest aviation market in Europe so has had higher fares for years as people value direct flights. We also have £200 and LHR charges that are higher than other European airports because it is public policy that the airport operates on a user pays basis without call on the public purse.

      Flights from MAD to SAm are also cheaper partly owing to their geographic proximity.

      On the general ‘rip off Britain’ trope, some things are cheaper, others more expensive.

      • Throwawayname says:

        14 Jan14 January 18:05

        The exMAD market includes flights to multiple countries in the Americas on UX, Plus Ultra, Avianca, LATAM- even AM fly to multiple cities. There’ll also be some charters here and there. OTOH, the UK authorities allowed bmi to be absorbed by the dominant player at LHR, and VS have limited feed plus a rather awkward relationship with Latin America and their local airline partner which isn’t even a fellow SkyTeam member.

        No wonder prices are vastly different.

• VR says:

  14 Jan14 January 06:33

  Going to South America next week. Madrid – São Paulo on premier economy, return São Paulo – London business. 86k points + £349 + Companion voucher for 2 people. If you have the time and patience for the connections, it’s definitely one of the best uses of the companion voucher!

  • Lumma says:

    14 Jan14 January 06:48

    Is the return direct on BA or via Madrid?

    • VR says:

      14 Jan14 January 09:37

      Via Madrid. But all under the same booking (done over the phone). Just needed to buy the Lon – Madrid separately

  • Bob Patterson says:

    14 Jan14 January 09:17

    Quite agree. Last February, my wife and I flew to Buenos Aires in business class, using my companion ticket with with Iberia. When I was booking the flight, BA would cost 180,000 points and £1595. Out of interest I looked at Iberia from Madrid. The cost was 102,000 points and £495! Quite saving. As I live near Gatwick, I flew Iberia express to Madrid. If I recall correctly the economy fare was around £120 each. As the flight to EZE didn’t depart until 23:59 hrs we actually flew out a day early and had virtually 2 clear days to tour Madrid. A very nice hotel in the middle of the city was only £130 for the night.

    • NorthernLass says:

      14 Jan14 January 15:30

      £120 each?! I’ve been paying about £40 each way between MAD and MAN.

  • jumpersforgoalposts says:

    14 Jan14 January 10:09

    Completely agree. We did this with Buenos Aires earlier this year. Had a few days in Madrid before (we’d never been so essentially used the saving to visit the city).

• Jane says:

  14 Jan14 January 06:37

  Does iberia guarantee a number of seats on each flight as per BA?

  • Lumma says:

    14 Jan14 January 06:51

    Not sure, but availability is good in my experience, especially on the routes with multiple flights per day. I’ve done Mexico City and Bogotá recently with just a couple of months notice and had plenty of options

    • Rob says:

      14 Jan14 January 08:13

      New York is very tricky in business, few issues elsewhere.

  • Brian says:

    14 Jan14 January 08:43

    Not sure if they guarantee seat availability in the same way that BA do but there’s usually only 2 business seats available for most flights from what I can see so it doesn’t really work for us as a family of 3.

    Shame as we fly to Brazil most years.

    • JDB says:

      14 Jan14 January 10:29

      IB does actually offer a fair few more J seats to SAm but generally only as part of married segments.

• Nico says:

  14 Jan14 January 07:07

  Definitely worth it especially off peak, iberia avios requirement and taxes much lower, appart from brazil weirdly.

  • Londonsteve says:

    14 Jan14 January 22:17

    I take it you mean only flying from Brazil, due to the restriction on the charges BA can apply when departing from there? Departing from London I’d expect to be charged the usual Avios and high cash component.

• DaveP says:

  14 Jan14 January 07:20

  I found the quality of cabin crew service in the business cabin to be friendly, efficient and attentive on my return flight with Iberia from Madrid to Quito. I was also given a greeting by the IFM as a gold card holder – not always case with BA.

• Andy says:

  14 Jan14 January 07:42

  Rhys, if you do book 2 separate tickets to avoid UK taxes, can you ask LHR counter staff to book your luggage to final destination, or will they definitely not? Anybody have any experience of this?

  • JDB says:

    14 Jan14 January 07:59

    No, they definitely will not. You also need to leave plenty of time to collect/recheck bags in Madrid. It’s quite a schlep T4S arrival > immigration > train to T4 > collect bags at T4, exit customs, go to check in > go through T4 security > train to T4S > immigration > enter T4S departure area

    • H says:

      14 Jan14 January 09:16

      On your experience is five hours enough? We arrive at 19:15 from LHR for a 23:59 departure for EZE.

      • Craig Vassie says:

        14 Jan14 January 09:54

        Yes you should be fine. I’ve done the whole thing in just over an hour a couple of times. JDB quite correct – it is a schlep, but the business class check-in at T4 normally only has a very short queue. Signage to find which check in desks are operating can be poor!
        Enjoy the cold fino, and the decent wine choices. Only negative is the cava! Far better than BA!

      • Raul says:

        14 Jan14 January 09:54

        It should be, the shuttle between terminals takes 5 minutes. If it was me I would leave minimum 4 hours between flights

      • JDB says:

        14 Jan14 January 10:39

        Yes, five hours is fine. The luggage delivery is quite slow but within norms. The biggest unplannable element is immigration if you have a UK passport.

        You can sail through or be unlucky and be stuck behind a flight load from a destination whose residents are very scrutinised. Sometimes they have loads of desks open, sometimes not.

        Although on one ticket, I had to do this luggage run to retrieve a misrouted golf bag and get it loaded onto our EZE flight. Entry immigration, straight to a desk, got train almost immediately, luggage took further 20 mins to arrive, no check in queue, fast track security quick, train OK but exit immigration was a 45 minute wait.

        • elt says:

          14 Jan14 January 11:25

          BA say that min connection time is 90 mins IB domestic to BA.
          BA changed my flight time back from madrid which meant I was dead on the 90 min time which I know from experience is not enough .
          But they did agree change my flight without charge – tho maybe that’s because I’m gold

        • H says:

          14 Jan14 January 13:11

          Thanks all for the replies

    • Andy says:

      15 Jan15 January 08:16

      Many thanks for this and all the other responses. If you are just hand carry only, is there a connections route, so you can bypass immigration? Sorry if slight off topic

  • JDB says:

    14 Jan14 January 08:00

    @Andy – on the return via Madrid you can book it all on one ticket and get your bags checked through without any tax implications.

  • Kuestrian says:

    14 Jan14 January 09:00

    It’s always worth asking at the check-in desk. SQ booked ours through to BA on two wholly separate bookings (and contrary to the advice listed on the BA site)

    • LittleNick says:

      14 Jan14 January 09:14

      That’s because SQ is a superior airline from a quality/customer service perspective. I’m surprised BA have not banned other airlines from through checking luggage onto them on different tickets, maybe it’s not possible!

      • JDB says:

        14 Jan14 January 10:42

        It’s not BA’s choice and it’s not just an SQ thing. OW policy not checking separate ticket bags through is for revenue protection and reducing liability.

        • meta says:

          14 Jan14 January 11:18

          It’s BA’s choice let’s not pretend otherwise. It’s also not OW policy at all. It’s BA and Iberia.

          Finnair, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, Sri Lanka will all check-through on separate tickets. I’m not sure about American Airlines as I have not flown them in about a decade.

        • Alex G says:

          14 Jan14 January 18:37

          It is not OW policy to not interline baggage, but it is permissible.

          There are some good OW airlines who will happily check your baggage through. And then there is IAG.

    • JDB says:

      14 Jan14 January 09:15

      Lots of non OW airlines will do that. The problem is that it is against OW and individual OW airline policy. At LHR BA and IB know the drill.

      • meta says:

        14 Jan14 January 11:19

        As I said above, this is not correct!

        • JDB says:

          14 Jan14 January 12:23

          @meta – what I said was that it’s not BA’s choice as to whether SQ can/will check bags through onto a BA service.

        • BJ says:

          14 Jan14 January 12:47

          @JDB, the bottom line is that most airlines and their staff most of the time most places are reasonable, practical and sensible about it. Thus use to include BA befire they became the main exception.

        • meta says:

          14 Jan14 January 13:07

          But you also said it’s against OW policy. It’s not, there is no such policy. There is only BA and IB policy. (and granted there might be other airlines who have same policy, yet in my 30+ years of flying – you have more I know, I am yet to come across such adamant refusals).

          And it also wasn’t the case on BA and IB maybe 15 years ago. They introduced it because both airlines have disdain for customers but like to pretend it’s some kind of extraordinary financial burden.

  • RV says:

    14 Jan14 January 09:45

    To avoid any issues I always go on the day before to Madrid. The savings vs BA / other airlines is so big that it’s worth paying £100-£150 for a hotel and enjoying one night in a lovely city as Madrid. Of course as long as you have the time to do it!

• Speedbird676 says:

  14 Jan14 January 07:46

  We used our companion voucher for MAD-LIM / EZE-MAD last year with separate connections LHR-MAD-LHR. Build in a bit of slack for the connections and enjoy a couple of hours in the lounge in MAD.

• PeterK says:

  14 Jan14 January 07:51

  As BA isn’t operating to Dallas this summer we’ve booked a 2-4-1 MAD-DFW-MAD-LHR. We’re connecting to MAD from LGW (our local airport) on IB express a couple of days earlier. I booked the MAD-DFW online then called BA a few weeks later to book the return DFW-MAD-LHR flights. As a connection our bags can be through checked DFW-LHR and our flight to LHR is an A350.

  NB frustratingly IB opens flights at -350 days but BA is at -355, so you have to hope the seats don’t sell in the interim. IB appears to only make 2 J seats available for redemption when the flights come into system range on all long haul flights.

  Even after paying for our LGW-MAD flights we have still saved nearly £1k in fees and avios for the pair of tickets.

  NB the one way fare I bought on IB express was the slightly more expensive ‘optima fare’ as this gave more flexibility including one free change. I booked via IB as on BA.com the same fare stated free changes but in the booking process it changed to an £80 change fee. I called BA (3 times) to query and every time they said BA.com was displaying incorrect fare summary info. They said they would feed back but the error is still on display some 2 months later.

  We’re looking forward to exploring Madrid for a couple of day ahead of the IB long haul experience.

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