You can transfer British Airways points to Iberia, and that can be really useful because while they are owned by the same company and have access to the same award seats Iberia doesn’t add extortionate fuel surcharges to award tickets.
In order to transfer points into Iberia your account has to have been open 90 days and has to have had some activity (which is why I will post about a free 50 or 100 Iberia points here or there, though you can also transfer in 1000 points from American Express).
Iberia’s award availability especially on their East Coast – Madrid flights can be quite good though it goes in spurts.
And though British Airways and Iberia both devalued, there’s an oddity in the Iberia chart that remains.
With the Iberia award chart for 8 months of the year — during ‘off peak’ travel dates:
- Boston and New York – Madrid costs 34,000 points each way in business class
- Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami – Madrid costs 42,500 points each way in business class
Again, that’s without big fuel surcharges.
Head for Points noticed something interesting about British Airways redemptions on Iberia, though.
When you go to the British Airways website to redeem British Airways points for travel on Iberia, BA is using the Iberia chart.
So you don’t actually have to move over points from BA to Iberia to get the almost 50% points savings on some Iberia flights. You’d still want to in order to save fuel surcharges, however.
I’m qualified to move points but every time I go to the Iberia site it’s a mess.
We need a good column on how to use Iberia’s site- it’s not very user-friendly.
Gary,
Can you repost hyperlinks to how to get 50 or 100 free Avios miles? My account is over 90 days but no activity.
I’m never able to find availability BOS -> anywhere on Iberia. I’m always confused when people say availability is good.
Did the taxes/fees also go up? I am pricing JNB-CPT for an off-peak on Comair and I thought it was $5 before and now it’s $44
Poyntee – the only place you can expect to find Iberia availability from Boston is Madrid! Quick look at early October shows decent economy availability on most days it goes although little in business, admittedly.
Question: are the fuel surcharges when booked with Iberia miles lower also on BA-operated flights? I have some travel to be booked on BA. I don’t travel to Spain anytime soon but I could perhaps do this mile transfer if it helps me reduce the horrendous fuel surcharges on the BA flight…
@augias – no
@Poyntee if your going to/from Boston the cheapest option is BOS-DUB on Aer Lingus that can be booked on the phone with BA at 12500 Avios each way in economy with less than £60 taxes return