On Friday I wrote about Iberia’s ridiculously generous promotion to earn up to 90,000 Avios. Read that post before reading the post below and see the Iberia site for more info.
I messaged them on Twitter asking what would happen if I booked and didn’t take the flight and they confirmed that I would keep the Avios:
With that confirmed, I went ahead and booked 10 one-way flights from SDR to MAD at the end of December for $27.73 each. In total I spent $277.30 and I expect to earn 832 Chase points (thanks to 3x point earnings on travel with my Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card) and 90,000 Iberia Avios, or a cost of 0.3 cents per mile.
The Iberia website gave me an error when I tried to book tickets when I was logged into my Iberia account, so I booked them while I was not logged in and just manually entered my details and Iberia Avios number for each reservation.
I’m hoping that the promo Avios will be transferable to British Airways as regular Avios are. Maybe we’ll even get lucky and transferring them will remove the expiration date. Iberia says that could leave your Iberia account with a negative balance on December 1, but it’s unclear what the ramifications of having a negative balance will be.
While Iberia Avios are more useful than BA Avios in some regards, such as lower mileage rates on some routes and lower fuel surcharges on Iberia flights, they also come with many caveats. The Iberia website is even more buggy than the awful BA website, Iberia charges more tax on domestic US awards than BA, Iberia phone support is horrendous, Iberia requires a round-trip purchase on partner awards, and Iberia doesn’t allow any changes or cancellations on partner awards. You can read more about Iberia Avios here.
If the Avios can’t be transferred to BA, I’ll just have to redeem them by December 1, they can be used for travel after that date as long as they are redeemed by then.
Given the uncertainty about transfers and the December 1 expiration date, I don’t think I’ll book 10 tickets for my wife and our 3 kids as well. Right now I think I’ll just roll the dice on $277.30 rather than go all in on $1,386.50 of tickets for the 5 of us. In general I like to scale amazing promotions like this, but there are just too many unknowns here.
Here is a look at Iberia’s award chart for travel on American:
- 90K Avios would be good for up to 8 round-trip coach awards, such as NYC-Boston for 11K Iberia Avios round-trip.
- A flight to/from NYC and Miami would cost 23K miles in coach or 46K miles in business class round-trip
- A round-trip flight to/from JFK and LAX would cost 28K in coach, 64K in business, or 96K in first class. You can transfer 6K AMEX or Chase points and add that to your 90K Avios to fly American’s highly rated first class on that route.
If you do want to take advantage of this promotion, you’ll want to do so by 5:59pm EDT today, which is 11:59pm in Spain.
Do you plan on booking Iberia tickets with this promotion?
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97 Comments On "I’m In For 10 Iberia Flights That I Won’t Take, Are You? This Incredible Offer Ends at 5:59PM Today!"
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the cheapest I’m seeing is 45 dollars
Same. Also are the prices in euro or usd?
Can try PMI-MAD also.
did you buy them all at the same time or one by one?
Thanks
Which dates do you see for 27, the cheapest I see is for 34 MAD-SCQ
Sdr to mad feb. 12
Most of December SDR-MAD
I may head out to MAD in February just to see what it’s like to have a plane to myself.
Dan , would it make sense for me to get this offer if I would want to redeem it for Round trip business from NYC-LONDON without any massive fuel charges ?
If you go via Madrid on Iberia it can make sense.
Mind to give me short I Instructions how to book ?
I went in for all 5 of us. Why use CSR over Amex Plat?
I get more use out of my Chase points.
But such a bad ratio?
plenty of TLS-MAD for $35 in Jan+
Two questions:
1) Can you book US domestic air on Iberia the same way you can book AA on BA’s site?
2) If not, and I try to transfer to BA avios is it possible I may lose the avios completely ?
You can, though a round-trip is required.
also $34 SVQ-MAD
Wouldn’t 5x point on Amex Platinum be better than 3x point on Chase?
UR points are more flexible/valuable than MR points. Also, with CSR, 3 points = 4.5 points when redeeming for travel.
$33 for VGO-MAD
Dan, would you book for the family if you were planning an international trip on Iberia or still too risky?
Sure.
Can any one help me figure out if 90k Iberia avios will be enough to fly:
TLV-BUD: Nov 11
BUD-NYC: Nov 13 morning
NYC-FRA: Nov 21
FRA-TLV: Nov 22 late afternoon/evening
Search on Iberia’s site for Avios tickets.
Quick Q – if I book all 10 one way tickets on my account (i.e I now have 90k Iberia miles), when it comes time to redeem the points after they are posted, can I book tickets for family members with my Iberia Miles, or can I only redeem miles for myself? Thanks!
You will be able to.
is the nyc- lax 28k for a round trip
Yes
any other 27$ flights?
How do you book 10 one way tickets? Is it 10 separate transactions for one traveler? Just trying to figure out the easiest way to book 10 tickets without re-entering info.
From my research it seems like I should theoretically be able to book a BA operated flight – LON to LAX – via Iberia using Iberian Avios.
I tried on the Iberia site but got nada – (though I wasn’t logged in).
I am right to think this should be possible?
Dan, I wanted to book tickets for early next week, do you think its even more risky taking advantage of this deal for travel so soon?
Hi Dan, any update on this? thank you!
how much points to travel USA to TLV?
I am in for 10 but even though I booked logged in to my IB+ account (I just created) none of my flights have my IB+ number on them and when I try to add it manually it says the name doesn’t match which is so weird. Have sent them a Twitter DM.
Starting 24 hours after account creation you should be able to add your number to the booking online.
From other twitter conversation I saw – Ibiria confirmed that those Avios will not transfer to BA. Not sure what will happen in reality, but that’s what they said officially.
I just saw a tweet that says the promotional points will not be able to be transferred to British Airways https://twitter.com/Iberia_en/status/1010901800331960320
Can I book these tickets using my Ur points through Chase travel portal, or is this promotion only if I book on iberia.com?
The terms say book on Iberia.com
It keeps saying there is an error after I entered my correct password. Looks like had to be registered for 24-48 hours first. I guess I missed out
I can’t believe people really think they will be able to use these points to fly NYC-TLV or other of the the questions in the comments above. But maybe that’s exactly what Iberia intended. There will be millions of Avios granted through this promo and therefore NO availability. Transferring to BA will not be possible, otherwise the expiration date of Dec 1st makes no sense. My advice is if you’re not okay with losing your money, don’t buy.
You can use the avios for partner awards.
Dan, can you list any other routes that have $27 tickets. All I can find in December are $42 tickets.
Also, what are the chances that this would get my BA avios account shut down as most of my miles are in BA avios at this point.
I’m in, thanks Dan! Looking forward to that LAX-MAD trip!
By accident all of my reservation calculated as Euro not Dollars – any suggestions on how to rectify this?
Check the pricing might even be cheaper that way
Seems like Iberia’s website is not working properly. Also, if I join their mileage program today, can I still get this offer?
Sure.
Dan do you think it will make a difference if I added my Iberia number after the reservation was made?
Officially you need to book it with the number
What’s the cancelation policy on these tickets?
Standard Iberia cancelation policy – depends on ticket class. Basic economy tickets for example can’t be canceled and you won’t get a refund. That’s what Dan (and I) bought.
I tried cancelling and they told me I can’t cancel fares book in Euros. If Dollars then that’s fine to cancel. I used my USA credit card so am I able to get protection from the cc company?
Can you please tell me if I booked a ticket then got confirmation then went in to add my Iberia number after do you think that would make a problem?
Could be
Do I need for the other tickets accouns? And do I just enter on the other tickets dummy names
Do I need to have separate accounts for each ticket ? And can I just enter dummy names
U only get points for one ticket per reservation unless the other pax have an iberia account
Will i be able to combine the accounts once it’s all done
Dan, thx 2 u, we did JFK- YVR for 50k BA Avios in February.
Would I be able to do the same using these Iberia Avios, or would I have to gamble that these will transfer into BA to repeat the trip?
Dan,
What is the best way to use these 90k to get from US to TLV?
Is it a problem to book ten tickets on the same week as it may look a bit suspicious or does not make a difference
Thanks
If you’re worried space them out a bit more.
In for 10 SVQ-MAD @$33.61
Just did it from vgo to mad
lets see if we get the avios
Is this promotion also for new members?
I can just open a Iberia account right now?
Is it better to open it on the the British Airways website?
So a round trip NYC-LAX will cost around 100$*
Is it still interesting?
*and how many taxes?
I can’t seem to register for their system. Is anyone else having issues? Suggestions? Its giving me an error message re my passport number.
dan can i book using business flexible and then cancel? for a full refund? and im tempted to open lots of accounts.
You lose the points if you refund your ticket. But in assuming that you already knew that.
i did thats why im not uderstanding why people are even laying out money for this promotion at all i feel like im missing something?
right so book the business flexible far in advance after the dec expiry date?
i created a new account and made the res. while logged in and the ff number was filled in and in my email confirmation, however afterwards i checked online and it did not have the ff number. I tried to add it but it said did not match. after 12 hours i was able to add it to all the reservations. will this be a problem?
im having the samw issue i guess ill wait for 12 hours bc ive been on the phone for an hour and no one picls up
wow! me too! i made tens and tens of reservations (my whole family) and now only the main passenger has the numbers! do i need to manually add each one now???!! before the cutoff time??!!!
Same here. I added the numbers when booking, they show on the confirmation email but not on manage my booking. When I tried to add them, it says it doesn’t match. Hope it’s not going to give me a problem as in 12 hours the promotion will have finished
Can I book 10 tickets with the same name for the same flight or do I need to do different dates?
10 tickets on the same flight under the same name run the risk of being canceled. Why are you even considering this when you can book different flights?
Dan, sorry for the unrelated question. I booked a flight for my sis in law to a kiruv camp in Kiev. Its with Lufthansa from Toronto to Kiev with a stopover in Frankfurt. The first segment to Frankfurt is premium economy but the second segment to Kiev is just economy. Does she get to bring 2 free bags ( which is the PE allowance) for the full trip or can she only bring one because the 2nd segment is just economy? I searched the website and this exact scenario isn’t mentioned at all. Thanks!
Can bring 2
how long will it takevfor the 90K to be in the iberia avios acct?
In 10 days
Dan, how to book domestic (US) flights? I tried to book, Iberia.com, RIC – ORD but not result?
Iberia.com is absolutely the worst airline booking site ive ever used!
It says it’s redeemable on flights operated by Iberia, Iberia Express or Air Nostrum. Can we use them on AA?
from SDR to MAD I only see a $45 fare, where is the $27 fare you got? ty
Hi Dan,
Can I use the Avios for another partner besides American Airlines? I would like to buy 10 tickets, then use 90000 Avios on Japan Airlines for roundtrip travel between Chicago and Tokyo in Spring 2019.
ITS NOT TILL 11:59PM US TIME ?
I SEE NOW THE OFFER EVEN AFTER 5:59PM
i just purchased ticket without having an account . if i apply now will i have the promotion
is there a executive number to reach them
Sitting in the “economy” section of an Iberia flight would be like a sardine packed in a can. The confinement caused muscle spams in my legs.
If I book a trip for january, do they credit the 90,000 miles now anyway?
Anyone booked thru the app?
Dan, any update on this? ty
Dan- my Avios number which I manually entered in each of my bookings, shows up on my email confirmation of my reservations. However when I go to manage my booking on Iberia.com, my number is not in my reservation.
Is there a way to confirm that I successfully entered my number and will qualify for the promotion?
Apparently newly created Iberia Plus accounts that booked in the promo period are being locked out. Has there been any further messaging from IB on this?
Account blocked on Iberia – any news or updates — other blogs are saying that people should expect an email from iberia soon but they aren’t honoring this – anybody got an email yet?