Recently, British Airways announced plans to completely overhaul its loyalty program as of April 2025. British Airways Executive Club is being replaced by The British Airways Club, and with these changes, status will be much harder to earn.
Continue reading: Club Iberia Plus: Iberia Massively Overhauls Loyalty Program
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I can't think of anyone I know in Spain who spends 20000 euros a year flying Iberia. Or do I not move in the right social circle?!
Seems mad to make it so hard to reach this goal. If the goal seems very unattainable, then no one is motivated to aim for it and spend more to reach it.
There's not even a OWE lounge in Spain. I guess the benefits of OWE over OWS in Iberia Plus are so minimal there are few people who reach OWE so they may as well make it difficult to reach.
This. Especially given all the low cost options such as Vueling and Ryanair. No real need for spaniards choosing Iberia
Ben, you have once again taken the opportunity to show your cronic disdain (if not hate) towards Spain in general and Iberia in particular. Have to appreciate the transparency (and consistency).
Looking forward to the next time!
@ Pol -- Please tell me how? By suggesting that Spain isn't a particularly high yield aviation market, compared to places like London?
@Ben when it comes to Spain, it is one of the hottest markets right now, DL and UA fly to AGP, AA being AA, and they are lagging on this. Flights to MAD and BCN are full, and Spain is where people want to be. Will IGA follow AA with Co-Branded CC, so anyone can make Top Tier?
"No disrespect to Spain, Iberia’s home market, but it’s not exactly the world’s most premium or high yield market."
A few things come to mind:
1. It's for the consistency between BA and IB.
2. While Spain's yield and/or GDP on average is not as high, the loyalty scheme over-index on the top percentile of spenders/travellers. With that in mind, it's not surprising that you can still maintain a healthy pool of elite flyers in the top tier.
3. They know their corporate clients and contracts.
They have to do this yah? Otherwise all the BA flyers just goes to the IB program
Spain is the EU’s largest aviation market. And is the only European country supporting two full service carriers. However you barely ever cover it, let alone fly there. And when you do you are always surprisingly critical (and biased)
Not long ago you flew to AMS and saw mice in the KLM lounge. You still awarded 4 stars. A few years back you reviewed the Iberia lounge in MAD. Better food, better facilities, no mice, 4 stars. You always seem to be dismissive of Spain (or even sometimes LATAM) related. Particularly if it’s Iberia. When was the last time you reviewed Iberia long-haul? In comparison how many times in the last 10 years have you reviewed BA, AF, Lufthansa, KLM or even ITA? For Iberia the number is 2 (1 itinerary Air Europa is the largest European airlines across the Atlantic that is not a former flag carrier. How many reviews? Ever? 2 (one itinerary) The subtitle of the article? “Better than I was expecting”
Iberia introduced an upgraded Biz seat on its A350s, however you have shown no intention of trying it. In that same time frame you have done 4 reviews of ITA.
You are free to cover whatever you are of course, but as a frequent reader of MANY years it is funny to see. Madrid is Europe’s IT city at the moment, and lots of investment and economic growth are taken place. Iberia simply wants to capitalize on that, as it should. And no, is not only poor people flying Ryanair that live there. I don’t expect you to know of economic trends in Europe, but you could start by not resorting to tropes that are somewhat tired at this point.
@ Pol -- So I appreciate the feedback and hear where you're coming from, but I think a lot of what you're saying isn't quite fair.
I have been wanting to fly Iberia's new A350 business class. The problem is a) lack of award availability and b) lack of consistency as to the markets it's offered to. I just recently wrote about how both the A321XLR and A350 are among the products I most want to fly, and I am even booked to fly the A321XLR soon:
https://onemileatatime.com/insights/airlines-to-review/
For that matter, I've been wanting to fly Air Europa's 787-9 business class, and every time I look to cross the Atlantic, I try to find a good deal or award availability on the airline, but don't have luck. I keep trying, though. I have reviewed Iberia's A330 business class, and unfortunately the A350 doesn't offer much service to markets in the US.
Regarding lounges, I do think KLM's non-Schengen lounge in Amsterdam is as good as Iberia's Schengen lounge in Madrid. I understand if you don't feel that way, but aesthetically, the KLM lounge is much, much nicer.
Regarding suggesting that Iberia's business class was better than I was expecting? I mean, I'd consider that to be a compliment. There's not much talk online about how Iberia is a world class airline, so isn't it good that my expectations were exceeded? Experiences often don't match my expectations, for better and worse, and I always point that out. Like, I also said that Delta One Lounges were better than I was expecting, and I think most people would take that as a compliment.
Anyway, I've always enjoyed my trips to Spain, and I think Madrid is a fantastic city. I'm sorry if you feel I'm dismissive to the country/airline, but that doesn't reflect my feelings...
If the new Platino Prime is IB's GGL and gets CCR and Chelsea access, I'd be up for it (but of course it won't)
IAG have put in these high thresholds to stop all BA status holders migrating to Iberia plus.
By making the thresholds the same there is no way to game the system.
The complicated cabin bonuses are a way to adjust for the lower average spend in Spain relative to the UK.
I don’t love this new system (putting it politely), but I can see why IAG have done this.
As a British person living in Spain, I’ll probably move from BA to Iberia in 2026, since all else being equal, I should really use the airline of my new home country.
Will be interesting to see if the newly created Iberia Platino Prime status allows access to the Concorde room / Chelsea Lounge - it would make me chase for the status if so.
Some quick google-fu corrections: Spain is the second largest European aviation market, and both Germany & UK support two full service carriers with Condor & Virgin Atlantic, respectively.
Bien dicho, hermano!!
Iberia is actually a very good airline, having massively improved its service. And yes, Madrid is an incredible city with extraordinary growth, energy, vitality, and shockingly good governance. But maybe it´s better if not todo el mundo hears about it ;-).
DL does not fly to AGP for over five years now. UA only flies there seasonally in an old configuration 757
I think that's the real point here. They are happy to give status to frequent Iberia passengers but really don't want to give BA flyers an easy way of escaping the dismal business class facilities at LHR.
If you live in Barcelona, OWE gets you and a guest lounge access (in BCN and MAD) when you fly Vueling which is a pretty nice perk.
Disdain for Iberia -- if offered -- is wholly justified. As is disdain for TAP.
One thing you haven’t mentioned is that now you can earn 30% of the elite points needed with avios outside of flying. Every 10 avios earned you get 1 elite point. For platinum, you’ll need 14.000 points flying and 6.000 points with other spending (which can be done with Amex, Iberia Cards, Iberia promotions, etc.) This softens the requirement a bit, because it’s easier to earn avios with external promotions. It would be a great change if the 30% limit wasn’t there or was higher.
Ben the small group of people who ran Iberia Plus did not set these thresholds. They were forced upon them by IAG in conjunction with BA
Spain very much is the largest aviation market in the EU (by passenger numbers. EU and Europe are two different things. Neither Condor or Virgin are fully-rounded, full service carriers, both lack substantial short-haul offerings, as the recent legal developments involving Lufthansa have proved.
Corrections are welcome, but you have to make sure to get the correction part right.
Not completely sure this is all that bad to be honest…
For Gold:
X2 transatlantic business class tickets a year, say $3000 each ($6000 spend) + 450 bonus elite points per leg (1800 elite points) gives you a grand total of 7800 elite points, getting you gold status. This is basically the same as current requirements (2250 elite points) that would require 2.5 Atlantic C class crossings.
For Platinum:
X5 transatlantic business class tickets a year, say $3000 each ($15000 spend) + 450 bonus elite points per leg (4500 elite points) gives you a grand total of 19500 elite points, basically getting platinum status. This is actually better than current requirements (6250 elite points) that would require 6.5 Atlantic C class crossings.
Or am I missing something?
lol. IAG dead set on killing their loyalty business. Absolute jokers. 20k euros for emerald. What are they thinking?!
Requalifying for Plat Pro (OWE in USA) requires $12500 of spend, and that's with US-EU RT's often costing way more than EU-US RT's (plus the minimal amount of business travel stemming from Spain in comparison to other regions).
I get that this is to avoid arbitrage between BA's new revenue based program and this, but I really think that airlines without a strong business travel clientele matching those that do is not the best idea.
I think the statuses have become more attainable, here is the math I'm doing:
Imagine a flight to Argentina (Latam 2 in the current chart, 100-200 elite points in that schema), 5 round trips on the route Mad-Eze won't give you any status. While with the new system and assuming €900(witch is an amazing price these days) per round-trip 3 of them will end up granting you Silver (or close to achieving it). The math for this goes €450 per segment + 150 points = 600 points * 6 = 3600
In addition to that, you can replace 1 of those round trips with having an Iberia credit card, so your daily expenses will translate to elite points.
Another way in where the math for status improves:
Any domestic economy flight (either Iberia or Vueling) will give you 15 elite points today (witch is 1.37% of the needed points to Silver). With the new system, just for taking the flight in the cheapest fare, you get 75 points witch is 2.14%, on top of that you will get the points for the money spent witch yield an even better % (Sadly, Vueling doesn't get the base 75 points).
I can see how a leisure traveller that does 1-2 long haul trips + the ocasional trip over the weekend in EU + having an Iberia credit card achieves at least silver with this new schema... previously that wasn't even remotely close.
If on top of that you add a couple of business trips (no need to be business cabin, PE will do) they can reach gold quite easily.
For this very reason, this is why the majority of flights to Europe are on AF As far as I’m concerned, One World has done everything possible to disrespect its loyal members with unrealistic goals for Elite status! And quality of AA, BA, and IB—- please. They are all a joke!
Valencia to Santander with a stop in Madrid is 4 segments return for €107. 90 flights for Emerald.
23 return trips x €107 = €2460 for Emerald status including 4 upgrade vouchers. Not that bad I think :p
Colm Lacy is obtuse and gaslighter in chief. This is the second destruction of the Spanish Armada by the Brits.
The problem with this example, and many of the other "it's not so bad" cases, is that ignores the "minus taxes and fees": taxes may not be a huge chunk, but airline-imposed surcharges can be impressive.
Now the next question is: what benefits does the customer see in attaining elite status? How many times a year is that person going to get expedited check-in and security that such a person wouldn't already have? How much more work will that person get done in the lounge?
To be effective, a loyalty program needs to make one appealing proposition to people who fly a lot of economy flights, and another to those who travel a lot in business. If I'm riding J all the time, why do I care about priority boarding?
I don't know how it works in the US in regards to business travel, but in Europe it's rather common (at least in medium-large to large companies) that a vast majority of employees will do intra EU travel in Y while intercontinental one is in J.
For instance, I am a MUC-based IB FF (Oro/Gold) and have 1-2 trips to Latin America annually plus regular travel to MAD and LHR. I get most value of my status in those intra EU flights, whether that is lounge access or complimentary seat selection.
I mean the actual price of the status isn't too bad in that scenario, but two things to bear in mind:
1- You actually need to fly 23x round-trips between Valencia and Santander, with all the time that entails 😉
2- I wouldn't say the upgrade vouchers are as good as they sound... Not sure if there have been any recent changes, but at least up until a couple of years ago those could only be used on full fare economy tickets, which more often than not were 200-300€ at most cheaper than a base business fare (and I have even seen more expensive full fare Y than base J).
They could've at least waited to see how it works out for BA (spoiler alert: massive flop), before spreading that nonsense over to IB where it's even less likely to work for a variety of reasons (lower yield being among the least significant of those - I mean, IB is based in MAD - there are much bigger problems with this).
I also don't follow the logic behind having two programmes when they are aligned to this extent anyway?
These BA and now IB changes are going to lead to such epic failure that I want to grab popcorn and watch it unfold and see IAG management try to explain why there numbers are down and where their frequent flyers went.
There are plenty of ways to get to Spain that don't involve stepping on BA/AA or a Oneworld carrier. If you want to go to Barcelona that isn't a direct flight for the most part on BA or IB. So if for example you wanted to go from Tampa, Florida the BCN-AMS-TPA connection isn't really much different than what BA/IB offer. I don't think BA/IB understand that for flights to/from Europe there are so many options to avoid them entirely if there is not point going for status or earnings/redemptions are too expensive.