Iberia Is Adding Flights Between San Francisco And Madrid

Just shows you how worthless AAdvantage miles are.

Good news. Hopefully, those ridiculous surcharges go away.

I'm sure the mistake was also having any award availability at all, which they will also correct soon.

More BA bashing...yawn, yawn

@ Johnny Crighton -- That seems to be the only thing you comment on. Interesting...

Lucky, I think they use some kinds of summer/high season price. If you search the same flight SFO-MAD on April 25, it will be 51K + $500, not great and in miles, it's very cheap. Don't forget that Iberia operates LEVEL, a low-coster from OAK-BCN.

Just checked on dates for August: available for $ 1049+ in fees + 57K miles each way.
Not good indeed.

I just booked one way BCN-SFO on AA for 57.5k and $272 fro 13 June. Since I live part time in Barcelona, I have used nearly every possible bis combination between the two cities. It's rare to find a good connection in biz saver on AA. LHR is among the worst of all airports (T3> T5=sucks), and I can avoid it and the inferior BA product. Thanks for the tip!

Not sure what the overlap between BCN and MAD markets are, but it's worth pointing out both Level and Norwegian already fly to OAK as of this year.

Seems like fairly significant Bay Area capacity increase to Spain in a short time.

After reading this article, I did my research and came up with the same high fees. Because I have a lot of interest in this route, I engaged in a conversation with Iberia over Twitter questioning why such a difference in fees between their US routes (I checked the breakdown cost and showed Iberia was charging almost 1K in fees for SFO>MAD). Finally after some back and forth they escalated the issue and their team took a look. Seems like it was some sort of bug and it should be down to $400 now.

@Carla, Unfortunately, not so.
Tried to book SFO to MAD nonstop on Iberia through AA's web site, leaving 8/15/18 and returning 8/22/18.
With miles: 115,000 RT + $1049.56.

MisterM,

I suspect we will see more airlines imposing the taxes and surcharges, given how cheap airlines have become

I took an Iberia flight in business between JFK and MAD last year (I believe it was the same flight you reviewed a few months previously). I really enjoyed the experience. The seat was comfortable and I thought the food was pretty good (though my wife was less enthusiastic). Not sure I would ever be flying SFO-MAD, but I would absolutely fly Iberia business again.

@ Johnny Crighton - This comment, full of ignorance and racism, is a new low for this website.

I just flew TAP Portugal in business class , MAD-LIS ( first class of course, for the feeder leg), LIS-MIA, for $1,070.

On this vacation I had flown AA from MIA-Santiago in Business for 57,500 miles, then SCL-MAD in business class for 87,500 miles.

All three long haul lights were in the 1-2-1 configuration.

The TAP business class was in their new A330 NEO, and was comparable to AA's 777-200 and superior to IB's A340-600.

The TAP hard product has virtually the same privacy as AA's business class. IB's has you open to all fellow passengers except if you're seated in odd numbered window seats, in which case you feel a bit more secluded.

TAP's onboard service was closer to AA's first class on its 777-300 than it was to IB's business class. Sorry, IB. Just saying.

There are instances where it's better to just pay, as I did on TAP, and save your miles. Incidentally , I booked and paid for that flight 8 months previously. The walk-up fare the day of the flight was over $2300.

I want next to fly LIS-SFO. I was thinking of using miles to fly in IB's business LIS-MAD-SFO, but will have to weigh paying the onerous surcharges with paying outright for TAP's non-stop LIS-SFO.