About three weeks have passed since the February 2 British Airways (BA) Avios devaluation. After the devaluation, the old sweet spot—4,500 Avios for short AA flights of 650 miles or less—was completely repriced to 7,500 Avios. Because BA prices each segment separately and then simply adds them together, even a round-trip ticket with one connection each way now costs 7,500*4=30,000mi after the devaluation, which is even more than AA’s own 25,000-mile domestic round-trip award. As a result, it no longer offers much value. The only awards that still make sense are nonstop flights within 1,150mi, which is naturally bad news for people like me who do not live near an AA hub. So today, we are introducing BA’s best backup option: Iberia Plus, the frequent flyer program of Spain’s flag carrier Iberia (IB). Like BA miles, Iberia miles are also called Avios, and they can be transferred back and forth with BA Avios. That opens the door to getting value from devalued BA Avios. At the same time, through BA, we can also indirectly transfer UR points into Iberia Avios.
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Iberia Plus award chart
Iberia, as a oneworld member airline, can be used in the U.S. to book short AA flights at quite attractive rates. Unlike BA, Iberia uses an award chart based on the total actual round-trip distance flown. The chart is as follows:
For example, for a route with a flight distance of 600mi or less, such as LGA-BOS, the round-trip total is about 410mi and costs only 11,000 Avios. That compares very favorably with BA’s 15,000 and AA’s own 25,000. In the screenshot below, the cash price of the flight is $246. A First Class ticket on the same route costs only 33,000 Avios plus about $20 in taxes and fees, while BA would now require 60,000 after the devaluation for the same route. (Of course, LGA-BOS First Class is cheap at about $450, so redeeming 33,000 Avios would not be a good deal.)
Even better, Iberia’s pricing rules are especially good for people who need a connection. For example, the BOS-PHL-ITH itinerary below totals 938mi round trip and costs just 12,000+$29. That is even much better than BA before the devaluation. The cash price for the same itinerary is $312.
Only when total round-trip distance reaches 4,001-5,000mi does Iberia’s price exceed AA’s, rising to 28,000 Avios. And 5,000mi is even enough for one LGA-LAX round trip (4,920mi). Here are a few things to keep in mind when redeeming with Iberia:
- You can only book round-trip awards, not one-way awards. Although the search interface has a one-way option, selecting it does not actually return any results.
- Iberia’s award search system is the worst I have ever used, bar none. The most frustrating issue is that if you search several times in a short period, it may refuse to let you continue searching. So we recommend finding award space on AA first and then entering it into Iberia’s system.
Above we introduced Iberia’s award chart for redeeming AA flights. As for the sweet spots when using Iberia for other tickets, we will gradually cover those in future posts. In short, Iberia is best for booking short AA itineraries that require a connection. For any given AA route, though, readers will need to compare for themselves whether BA, Iberia, TYP, or simply paying cash is the best option.
How to earn Iberia Plus Avios
Flying Iberia
Iberia still awards miles based on actual distance flown, but unless you are flying full-fare economy (Y, B, H) or a higher cabin, you earn only 0.25 or 0.5 Avios per mile flown. For readers based in the U.S., though, chances to fly Iberia are limited, so we will not spend much time on that. Our main focus is how to transfer the points and miles you earn from U.S. credit cards into Iberia.Flying other oneworld airlines
Before AA switched away from distance-based earning, crediting AA flights to Avios was a bad deal, with discounted fares earning at roughly 25% of flown miles. After AA moved to revenue-based earning, the gap became smaller, but Avios still do not offer any particular advantage. You may be better off crediting to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan instead. We will not go into other airlines here, but you can use WhereToCredit to check which program gives you the best return for your flights.
Credit card transfers
First, Iberia is a transfer partner of AMEX Membership Rewards, but the ratio is not ideal: MR transfers to Iberia at 250:200. However, because Iberia and BA are both subsidiaries of International Consolidated Airlines Group, S.A., their Avios can be transferred between each other at 1:1. That means you can move BA Avios earned from the Chase BA credit card into Iberia, or indirectly transfer UR to Iberia at 1:1 through BA. The first step is to link your BA and Iberia accounts. To do that, you need:
- Both accounts to be at least three months old,
- Both accounts to have some mileage activity.
To create account activity in your Iberia account, you only need to transfer 250 MR points in. Once you meet the requirements above, you can click the link shown in the screenshot below on the BA website:
After opening the linked page, follow the prompts, enter your information, and choose to link the accounts. Once the two accounts are successfully linked, transfers between them post instantly. After that, you can happily use UR to book AA flights. Finally, let us give the Chase BA credit card another plug. Since starting in April, Chase will apply the 5/24 rule to all of its credit cards, getting approved will become much harder. Meanwhile, the Chase BA credit card currently has a 50,000/75,000/100,000 welcome bonus. If this article convinces you that Iberia Avios are useful, maybe it is worth applying for the Chase BA card sooner rather than later.
Car rentals, shopping, and more
Of course, there are also other ways to earn Iberia Avios, such as shopping through Avios or renting cars with Avis. But since these are not the main points-earning tools, we will not go into detail here. Have you ever redeemed Iberia Plus Avios for AA flights? Feel free to leave a comment and share your experience!