I’ve hesitated from writing about this as there are many risks here, but I guess I’m better off explaining the offer and what the risks are, rather than ignoring the offer.
You can earn 9,000 promo Iberia Avios for every Iberia flight that you purchase by June 24, up to 90,000 promo Avios per member. Normally promotions like this require that you actually fly, but in this case the terms clearly state that “The Avios will be added within 10 days of the purchase to the Iberia Plus account of all customers identified as members of the Iberia Plus programme during the purchase process.”
The terms also state that if you request a refund that the Avios will for removed, but that implies that if you purchase a flight and don’t take the flight that you’ll keep your Avios as long as you don’t ask for a refund.
However these promo Avios has a limited life span. You need to redeem them by December 1 or else they will be removed. Or in the words of the promo terms, “For example, if a customer purchases tickets on Iberia.com for three people to fly from Seville to Madrid and two of the people are identified as Iberia Plus members during the purchase process, 9,000 Avios will be credited to both of these people within 10 days of the purchase. These two people must have redeemed at least 9,000 Avios by 1 December 2018, or this same amount of Avios will be withdrawn from their account.”
You can buy a flight from SDR to MAD for just $27.73 that should earn 9,000 promo Avios:
If you have a family of 5 like me, that means you can book 10 of those flights for everyone for $1,386.50 and earn 450,000 promo Avios plus another 4,159 points for the spending on a card like. Don’t forget to register everyone for Iberia Avios accounts before booking tickets and to include their Avios numbers on the reservation!
But there are so many questions here…
- Will Iberia actually honor this promotion as stated or will they try to change the promo terms when they see how many people are taking advantage of it? Iberia does not have the best reputation when it comes to honoring promotions and complaining to the DoT won’t help for a non-US airline, but as long as you save a screenshot of the promotion I guess you can always try to file a credit card chargeback if things go south.
- Will this work for one-way tickets? It should, as the terms don’t specify that a round-trip is required.
- Will Iberia get MAD when you don’t show up for your flight? Most airlines strongly dislike when people book up tickets on flights for promotions, hidden cities, etc. Will Iberia retaliate against people who do this? People have gotten banned from airline’s mileage programs for smaller infractions in the past. Would retaliation extend to British Airways Avios accounts?
- When airlines run promotions that are too generous they have been known to scrutinize accounts for infractions. We had to ban mileage sales on DDF some 8 years ago after USAirways went after members who took advantage of the track-it-back promo and matched up their names with people trying to sell miles.
- You can normally transfer British Airways Avios and Iberia Avios freely back and forth. Will you be able to transfer these promo Avios to British Airways Avios? If you are able to transfer them to British Airways, will they still expire on 12/1/18 or where that remove the expiration date? If you transfer the miles to British Airways Avios and don’t use them by 12/1, will you have a negative Iberia Avios balance that could cause your account to be banned or for the miles to be clawed back from British Airways? What if you redeem the BA Avios for a flight before 12/1 and then pay the $5.60 to cancel and redeposit the Avios What if…
Iberia’s Avios program has lower fuel surcharges than BA, but their website is even more of an IT mess than BA. Mileage rates can be lower, but Iberia doesn’t allow any changes to partner awards after booking. You can read more about Iberia Avios here.
All in all, this can be a very lucrative promotion or it could all go down the tubes. Caveat emptor!
I’m still on the fence myself, how about you?
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54 Comments On "Iberia Has A Ridiculously Lucrative Avios Offer, But What Are The Risks?"
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I wouldn’t do it for my whole family but I’ll take the risks for 1 account.
agreed- gonna try for 1 account
Looks good
This is spreading like wildfire on every travel blog. Many routes will be flying empty for quite a while.
Exactly why I’m concerned about the risks of term changes, account closures, and the like.
It’s just too good to be true.
Do you buy the link in DDF from an “Iberia Spokesperson?”
Will you be able to transfer the avios to BA
“Will Iberia get MAD”
OK, I think you’ve just beat your infAAmous AAdvantage post.
After booking 10 flights to/from MAD, I finally get it.
Iberia is not the best airline to fly or to deal with. We took multiple flights with them last summer and had many issues with both the flights and the nonexistent customer service afterward. There was literally no customer service for most of their fares. Keep that in mind.
Where can I see the Iberia award chart?
I tried registering my kids but seems like a lengthy process to register a minor. Does anyone know about this ?
Personally I’d just make them adults.
My kids were born in 1911, 1913, and 1917 as far as BA knows. No problems flying like that.
For earning miles I think it will be an issue..but I doubt you ever earned miles thru flying
Why in the world would it be an issue?
I think you need name passport and dob to match ff account to earn miles, but I could be wrong
No need for it to match. Don’t even need to give a real passport number either for that matter.
Would you take a southwest companion same name as your companion but differnt age(Companions uncle with same name?)
Loyalty lobby just posted.
Here’s the statement that Iberia spokesperson emailed us:
I have just sent you an e-mail with further information on our 9,000 Avios special promotion, but, please let me try to explain the doubts in your article, that I have just read
Our Iberia Plus cardholders will be able to keep the promotional Avios, if they don’t fly the purchased segments. And you can only redeem the Avios awarded through this promotion through the Iberia Plus programme. If the customers transfer these Avios to their BA Executive Club account, they will have a negative balance in the Iberia Plus programme, as those Avios wouldn’t have been spent by the date mentioned above.
Please, let me know, if you need further details on this.
but you dont see in the terms that you are not allowed to transfer them to BA
I’m in for 90k. Seems worth risking the 1 account that I pretty much don’t use anyway. Fingers crossed that these 1) post and 2) prove to be useful to me before Dec (likely).
Will this work if I don’t already have an Iberia account?
Sure. Just open one before you book the ticket.
The major question I had was whether the December 1st deadline meant we had to have completed travel by then, or just have booked the avios redemptions by then.
Agree. I have the same question. Need to book by December or already have flown?
I’d assume redeem by.
dan when you say banned does that mean you cannot fly anymore on iberias airlines?
Most bans are just from the mileage program, not flying the airline.
OPEN THE MILLEAGE ACC. ON YOUR NAME WITH 1 OR 2 SPELLING MISTAKES IN YOUR FIRST NAME
I’m assuming that if I open a new Iberia account, than even if I get banned, it’ll only be from that account and not from my current account. Is this correct?
is it possible to book NYC-LAX through Iberia avios?
Sure.
Yes, on their partner American. The problem is that you’d only be able to redeem Avios when there is saver availability on American, and as we all know that’s almost never these days- especially on premium flights like NYC-LAX. I would check availability on AA.com now and see how much there is from now until next year before counting on using this strategy to redeem by 12/1- I wouldn’t be surprised if there was barely any availability on a route like NYC-LAX.
Have you heard of any mileage program bans with air France. There is award space that stops over at what I want my final destination to be at significantly cheaper amount of miles.
@Dan or anyone else for that matter, Could you please post the Iberia award chart?
Google is you’re friend it’s not that hard
For their AA chart, click on “You can read more about Iberia Avios here.”
BTW how is Iberia airlines? Is it a good airline?
Dan, can you please write (perhaps after the miles post) all the ways to redeem 90k IB Avios?
+1
Telling me my name and frequent flyer number don’t match but it’s saved to my profile and they fill it in. Any ideas?
Mine too. They told me I had to be registered for 24-48 hours first.
May 2017: Flew Iberia from Athens to Madrid on a flight that was delayed 5 hours because, the pilot told the passengers, the ground crew had found a dent in a cargo hold door.
July 2017: Filed a claim for delayed-flight compensation ($488 less fees for AirHelp).
October 2017: Claim was denied, AirHelp is appealing it to some European court, I was told I might have to show up to testify or at least have documents notarized at a consulate. AirHelp regularly sends me emails saying “these things take time.” Just received another one today.
Lesson learned: Avoid Iberia, and expect the same from their British Airways brothers.
I flew Iberia TLV MAD NYC rt, not a bad experience, nice airport.
Do you need to book through a link or does the app qualify? When is the deadline?
Don’t bank on getting a charge back. You bought a ticket and got a ticket you just didn’t get the free gift.
Can you fly to Israel with there points? How many points is it round trip?
“These two people must have redeemed at least 9,000 Avios by 1 December 2018, or this same amount of Avios will be withdrawn from their account.”
Does this stupid website ever work? It kept saying there is an error after I entered my correct password or after I requested to reset my password.
Grammar correction: People have gotten banned from airlines’ mileage programs for smaller infractions in the past
Do you have to book this on the Iberia website or can I book this on the chase site using reward points using my Iberia number?
Hey I’m new to all this but I need to fly my family from Israel to America in a month and on a budget…. will doing all this help? If someone can explain what the end game is?
Are there any other ways to redeem these miles other than flying (magazines, shopping portals etc)?
have i missed it?
Link still says all info of the promo, but clearly says only until the 24th