Iberia Plus has just launched one of the best award sales the program has ever offered. Of course that’s only of so much use, given coronavirus and border restrictions.
Continue reading: Iberia Plus Offering 50% Off Award Tickets (Including Business Class)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
In the past few weeks Iberia has cancelled our award tickets 5 times....
I no longer trust them.
@Ben are there black out dates around Christmas? I am only seeing standard avios amounts for flights between Madrid and Brazil in December 2020....
I can't seem to replicate this. It is showing full price for all redemptions, even the one used as an example in this article. Have tried both Spanish, US and Danish point of sale.
I'm not seeing the 50% discount. Trying to book a flight in January. Do I need to register somewhere?
@ JRich -- There should be no blackout dates. What routes are you searching? I just searched MAD-GRU and on December 18 it shows a price of 62,500 Avios in business class, and once you select the flight and cabin, the price goes down by 50%.
@ Scandinavian Traveler @ Andy -- There's no registration required. What routes are you searching, and are you going through to the booking page to see the discount?
I tried Tokyo, Miami and Chicago. None of them worked. I have 0 Avios in Iberia Plus and Combine My Avios is currently out of function, so I cannot move across any from BA, but going as far as I can with the booking without any Avios it is still requiring the full amount of Avios.
@Andy & @Scandinavian Traveler -- In the search results, you'll see 34,000 for business. However, if you don't have enough Avios in your Iberia account (like me), scroll down and you'll see an option to buy Avios. You'll see 17,000 Avios + $69 is an option to buy the Avios required to book. If you search dates outside the promo period, you'll see an option for 34,000 Avios + $69. It's a bit confusing since they don't list the correct award rate in the search results.
@Ben I don't have the required avios in my account so perhaps that's the problem....
Not having enough Avios in your account *is* the problem. I tried round-trip and it came back full price. Doing one-way search (I have 28,000 Avios) shows the right price of 17,000 Avios.
Does the free cancellation policy as mentioned here( https://www.iberia.com/us/en/covid-19/flight-flexibility/) apply to award tickets too?
If so, could make it worthwhile to speculatively book some flights based on the hope that a vaccine comes out and makes it possible to travel, then cancel fee-free if the travel restrictions continue to make flying impossible.
@Lukas & Ben which country landing page are you guys using? I now have sufficient avios but can't get the discount from the US, Spanish, nor UK pages. I get all the way to the credit card page and it states the normal avios amounts....
NYC to Madrid shows 17k per trip. Seems to be working . Does Iberia refund miles in case ppl still can’t travel to Europe from America ?
@ orlando you can always cancel avios tickets for a €25 fee. Which country is your account located in? Which Iberia page did you use?
@JRich I’m in USA. Using US Iberia page. When I looked up availability using avíos, it didn’t show anything, y had to choose flight then continue and it showed the 50% discount .
Hmmm. this is tempting
6800 avios and $700 return business ord to madrid.... Although I hate the early takeoff time from ORD.....
This is cheaper than Lifemiles lol
It seems in the terms and conditions that this an "exclusive promotion for Iberia Plus holders residing in Spain." Curious how others are actually accessing this? Perhaps it is possible to change address and get this to work?
I just brought up regular USA browser. I have no points in account. Pressed view and said 17k points.
I can see Iberia cancelling all the US resident tickets and giving them back their money/points, several months from now.
Spanish resident here. Looking at early March flights on MAD-NRT/PVG. Can't see any availability in J to PVG, and there's some on NRT, but at the usual Band 8 rates (59.5k). Beyond the lack of availability, am I missing something that doesn't enable me to see the 50% discount?
@Ben, how do you think Iberia will handle rebooking fees for awards? For example, If I book a business class at the award sale price and eventually have to cancel because travel restrictions for Americans are still in place, will they refund the miles or will I have to rebook my trip at a higher miles cost than what was originally booked during the sale? Very tempting, but realistically do not want to loose my miles.
Agree, I can see Iberia cancelling all awards booked for non-Spanish residents since you're basically circumventing the promotion rules
@JD, I had a flight ORD-MAD back on March 12-20 RT. Had to cancel. Initially asked for a voucher (because I was confused, it was less than 24 hours before my flight was to leave, couldn't reach them through calling and I just wanted some sort of proof that I, indeed, didn't want to fly). It took some emailing and such, but they eventually refunded my Avios to my account and refunded my fees to my cc. Most of that 'eventually' was my own doing and I think most of the rest was just that they were overwhelmed with cancellations, etc. in March/April/May.
Initially cannot see the discount. Changed the address to my friend’s in Spain made it work instantly
I live in Madrid, my account is in Spain, I only see normal price for award tickets! I could not find any promo at Iberia Plus, are you sure about this promo?
I am sorry! I made a mistake!! I have my address in another country! I change to my home in Madrid and it is working!!
Promotion on site now includes USA. Just transferred from my Chase Reserve to book CHI to MAD in Feb 2021.
Is anyone else getting an error when trying to book? That Avios is down and to use another payment method? I hope I didn't transfer all these points for nothing. 🙁
@Kristina
Nope - no errors in my case. Just confirmed two Bus Class ORDMAD at about 4:00 CDT. If all goes well on the COVID front, I'll be taking my wife to Spain for Valentines day.
Transfer Avios: I had Avios in BA. Couldn't transfer to Iberia through the normal route, so I opened an account with AerLingus Aer Club, this allowed me to login to Avios, and then I transferred firstly to Avios.com and then to Iberia. This worked today 26th August.
Address in Spain was required to get the promotion, but this is easy to change on the system.
Iberia has a 50% bonus when you buy Avios, which finishes on 27th August, so if you are short of Avios it's worth buying on their site.
Has the author actually flown on Iberia? I'm seeing hundreds of terrible reviews online about Iberia saying they have terrible customer service, and aren't a good quality airline.
From past experiences I sort of frown at the amount of taxes/fees charged by Iberia on awards. People talk about how good the miles are, but not stating how low/high the taxes/fees are.
First off - success! Need to fly from Switzerland to New York in 3 weeks and booked this for 21,500 avios and $138 in taxes and fees! GVA-MAD-JFK.
Also, for those not seeing the promo - you have to have a Spanish address in your account, and the discounted price will show up at the bottom of the page when you select the flights you want.
@michael m I agree. I should have had enough avios to cover everything other than taxes, but ended up having to pay over $900 in taxes and some kind of fare/surcharge for my fiance and I to go from new York to Madrid.
@Darren. 900$ ? That way too much!
I booked for feb 2021 business class round trip for me and wife, ended up paying close to 400$
I booked a one way award for March 15, MIA to MAD with Iberia Avios. Iberia appears to not be flying that route on that date now. My reservation still shows on their site. Will they transfer to a partner airline?
Due to the recent developments I am no longer allowed to enter my destination. Does any of you HD experience with changing/cancelling the booking from that offer? Were you able to get a voucher for a flight at a later date? If you were refunded did you get 50% Avios or full price (when booking the flight the account activity shows weird full avios deduction and 50% credit)?
I gave Iberia a call, they said I could cancel for a small fee, or I could change the dates at no cost, but changing dates could only be done once at no extra cost. They asked for exact dates I wanted, I chose November 2021 hoping travel is allowed by then, it took them a while to make the change, agent said it was due to booking being done with miles. I even added an extra day, everything else stayed the same, same airplane/seating.
took the flight november 2021 jfk to mad round trip. JFK iberia employees were beyond rude, opposite to Iberia employees in Spain. Other than that everything else was great!