How To Redeem With Maximum Value On 90,000 Iberia Plus Avios (With Minimum Tax)

If you are also pumped about the crazy Iberia Avios promotion I just wrote about today and start to wonder where can those precious 90,000 Avios take you which are arriving within 10 days, that's assuming you've booked 10 one-way segments. Without any surprises, most of us will get 90K Avios for 300Pounds or even less if you've used any sort of cash back portals or promo codes.

You would have more Avios and even elite points if you are going to travel on those booked journeys, but the return wouldn't be significant if you only booked 260 pounds of one-way MAD-PMI(s).

So, if you have status with IB, you will get additional 50% if you are Iberia Plus Oro, but if not, 26 Pounds MAD-PMI will get you 125 Avios and 15 Elite Points, that's if you fly on those, let's say if you fly on all 10, you will have 1250 Avios and 150 Elite Points, you may transfer those to BA or just use it to cover some cost of your booking next time.

Here's the things we are not going to discuss in the article:

Whether it's possible to transfer IB Avios to BA.
Redeem IB Avios on BA
Redeem IB Avios on OneWorld carriers
Redeem IB Avios on Vueling,LEVEL and Royal Air Maroc.

So, reasons why I am not going to recommend that due to the insane amount of tax & surcharges you would have to pay even though you might be able to redeem first class on BA.

Since I assume most of you guys aren't long term loyalty customers with Iberia, even you've status-matched yourself with them last year to Iberia Plus Oro which entitles you to numerous benefits.

If you are not planning to credit flights and earning status with them in the long term, I would recommend using those 90,000 Avios on selective routes operated by Iberia and let your dark history account with numerous no-shows R.I.P.

Redemption:

Iberia's own redemption charts are split into two seasons with peak season and off-peak one.

Bear in mind that their peak and off-peak calendar is different from British Airways'.

Step 1:

Keep the Season Calendar handy so you can search for dates marked with off-season redemptions. Legends: Red - Peak; White - Off-peak

Step 2:

Pick your destinations:

Iberia has a fleet of A330s and A340s for long-haul operations, and their A350s will start rolling in August which will operate flights from Madrid to New York and London. Those flights will feature premium economy seats.

Bear in mind that some long-haul flights to Africa are operated with narrow body aircrafts, so in the sense of maximise your value, you would definitely get onto flights with wide-body jets.

So also since you only have 90,000 Avios (suppose most of us fit into this category), you can fly business class on Iberia's wide-body jets to destinations outside of Europe in order to maximise the value and avoid paying unnecessarily high taxes.

So, here's their destinations outside of Europe:

Africa – Algiers, Casablanca, Dakar, Malabo (Equatorial Guinea), Marrakech, Oran, Tangier, Johannesburg
USA – Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco (from April 2018)
Americas exc USA – Bogota, Buenos Aires, Cali, Caracas, Guayaquil (Ecuador), Lima, Mexico City, Montevideo, Quito, Rio do Janeiro, San Jose (Costa Rica), Santiago, Sao Paulo, Asucion, Medellin, Guatemala, Panama, San Salvador, Managua (outbound via Guatemala, inbound direct)
Asia – Tokyo, Shanghai
Caribbean – Havana, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic)
Middle East – Tel Aviv

Again, you only have 90,000 Avios, and here's their award charts on redemption on Iberia flights:

Iberia has a distance-based redemption charts where different destinations are categorised into 9 Bands, and here are their corresponding destinations (departing from Madrid):

- Band 1: Alicante, Almeria, Asturias, Badajoz, Barcelona, Bilbao, Granada-Jaen, Ibiza, Jerez, La Coruna, Logroño, Malaga, Melilla, Menorca, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Pamplona, Salamanca, San Sebastian, Santander, Santiago de Compostela, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid, Vigo, Algiers, Bordeaux, Casablanca, Geneva, Lisbon, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, Nice, Oporto, Oran, Perpignan, Rennes, Tangiers, Toulouse .

- Band 2: Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Santa Cruz de la Palma, Tenerife, Marrakech, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Birmingham, Bologna, Cork, Dublin, Dubrovnik, Dusseldorf, Munich, Strasbourg, Florence Frankfurt, Funchal, Genoa, Glasgow, Hamburg London , Manchester, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Paris, Prague, Rome, Turin, Venice, Vienna, Zagreb, Zurich.

- Band 3: Athens, Bucharest, Budapest, Crakow, Copenhagen, Corfu, Gotemburg, Istanbul, Stockholm, Heraklion, Mykonos, Moscow, Oslo, Reikiavik, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Dakar.

- Band 4: Cairo, Lagos, Malabo, Tel Aviv.

- Band 5: Boston, Chicago, Luanda, New York, San Juan (Puerto Rico)

- Band 6: Bogota, Caracas, Cali, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guayaquil, Johannesburg, Havana, Lima, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Miami, Panama, Quito, Rio de Janeiro, San Jose, Costa Rica, Santo Domingo, Sao Paulo.

- Band 7: Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Santiago, Chile.

- Band 8: Tokio, Shanghai.

Iberia Business Class Advert For Shanghai Route

For maximised value of 90,000 Avios, you can redeem flights as follows:

Peak Season, Band 4, Return trips in Business Class cost at 62,500 Avios+Tax & Surcharges.
Peak Season, Band 5, Business Class one-way and Blue Class one-way cost at 70,000 Avios+Tax & Surcharges.
Peak Season, Band 6, Business Class one-way and Blue Class one-way cost at 87,500 Avios+Tax & Surcharges.
Off-Peak Season, Band 4, Return trips in Business Class cost at 42,500 Avios+Tax & Surcharges.
Off-Peak Season, Band 5, Return trips in Business Class cost at 68,000 Avios+Tax & Surcharges.
Off-Peak Season, Band 6, Return trips in Business Class cost at 85,000 Avios+Tax & Surcharges.
Off-Peak Season, Band 7, Business Class one-way and Blue Class one-way cost at 76,500 Avios+Tax & Surcharges.
Off-Peak Season, Band 8, Business Class one-way and Blue Class one-way cost at 89,250 Avios+Tax & Surcharges.

You are correct, here the combination of business and premium economy combinations are not included and so are the possibilities of booking one-way segments; those are more complexed and thus require more careful planning and manipulation of their forbiddingly IT system that can easily put you on the edge.

If you are based in Europe, thus originating from Madrid(MAD) would be the best option for you to relax in wide-body business classes on return Band 6 flights during off-peak seasons. As for flights to Madrid, you can easily find some low cost tickets to their weather by booking early or flying with a budget one.

Highlight destinations:

Destinations in South America and Caribbean Islands:

These destinations are often hard to get there with one transfer at a reasonable price, not to mention fly in business, so it would be a great oppotunity if you are planning to explore those destinations.

I would highly recommend Havana or Santo Domingo as those places are hardly on the map for many normal leisure travellers.

You may also decide to visit South Africa as Johanesburg can be an interesting place to visit as well.

Asia:

If you are based in Shanghai or Tokyo area, you may choose the aforementioned option flying business one-way and economy back to visit Madrid or even the entire Spain, if your purchased tickets later on, (preferably next summer?)

Tax & Surcharges:

Booking flights with Avios with IB is definitely a more viable option even for flights with BA through IB, you may transfer BA Avios to IB if you want to save expenses on the same flight.

So depending on which Band you are redeeming flights on, normally for Band 6 return business class tickets, it would around 180 pounds of taxes and surcharges, though there could be some small influx based upon that.

Useful Links:

Avios Peak and Off-Peak Calendar: HERE

Avios Redemption Table On Iberia: HERE

Search Several Destinations Using Avios: HERE

See Available Destinations On A Map: HERE

Find Redemption Charts on other OneWorld partners: HERE

Iberia Route Map(non-official): HERE

Bottom Line:

Each Iberia will have only two business class seats available, thus I would recommend book ASAP, judging the outrageous amount of people who have took advantage of this promotion.

Fingers crossed that we all will be getting 90,000 Avios in 10 days, and everyone is happy. From a business operating perspective, I would say Iberia would overbook those 26 pounds flights so they will bring in all those extra revenue while flying their normal targeted passengers. As for many of us who are wondering, who good do Iberia get out of this insane promotion, I would say their short-term sec filing would look great while they might not be getting highly-valued customers who will actually stay with Iberia afterwards.

As for what happens if they don't honour those Avios by coming up with new Terms and Conditions, though the possibility would be slim, I guess we will would have a hard-earned lesson to share next time something like this come up again.