Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

One interesting quirk with the new Avios scheme we never expected

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My main article today summarises all of the Avios changes that took place yesterday.

Everything is as we expected.  Except one thing.

As you will know if you followed my articles on the changes, Iberia is introducing its own reward pricing chart with its own peak and off-peak dates.  It looks like this:

Iberia chart PNG 2

What I didn’t expect is this:

ba.com is using the Iberia pricing chart to price Iberia rewards.

Here is the proof from ba.com:

rsz_iberia_avios

This flight – if priced using the British Airways chart used for BA and all other partner airlines – should cost 120,000 Avios.  However, ba.com is pricing it using the Iberia pricing chart and applying the Iberia off-peak calendar.

You should still not book this flight on ba.com.

If you move 68,000 Avios to Iberia Plus and book it that way, the tax will fall from £323 to £137.  However, not everyone can move Avios into Iberia Plus because a) your Iberia account must be open for 90 days before you can transfer and b) you must have earned 1 Avios point in the account.

If you can’t fulfil both of the criteria above, booking via ba.com will be your only option.  I can see a lot of people heading down to Madrid in the near future ….


How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express card

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Comments (64)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • n says:

    Would the 500 point Hailo/Gettaxi (I can’t remember which one it was!) bonus from last week count as ‘earning’ points?

  • Andrew says:

    Is Iberia fully flat on MAD-JFK?

  • RT says:

    What is the “best” way to earn 1 point on Iberia to “activate” the transfer process?…

    • sandgrounder says:

      The Hailo bonus described above should do the trick if you have access to an Android smartphone.

      • xcalx says:

        Also the transfer of ereward points will activate an Iberia account takes about 4 days.

    • Rob says:

      Credit a flight, hotel stay, car hire, Amex transfer, the Hailo thing (ends tomorrow), transfer from a hotel scheme …

      You can’t buy Iberia Avios, though, because your account needs to be active before they let you do that. Chicken and egg ….

      • RT says:

        Ah thought I had missed the boat on the Hailo thing.

        Guess I’ll do that tonight then!

    • Liz says:

      Buy wine from their site Vino Seleccion – we did that last month – cost £48 and got 480 avios plus the 500 bonus points. My 90 days will be up next week!

  • Flight Risk says:

    Hey

    I have 2 x $50 Cathy Pacific Airways service vouchers, I am not likely to fly with them this year, what’s the best way to get rid of these? Ebay?

    Thanks

  • Armo says:

    Can I transfer Amex Points into Iberia would that activate the account? (Can i then transfer those point from Iberia back to Ba?)

    • Phillip says:

      Yes and yes.

      • Phillip says:

        The account needs to be active for 6 months though before you can transfer back and forth between Iberia Plus/BAEC/Avios.com.

    • Trevor says:

      Yes, yes and yes (however the ability to transfer from Iberia to BA depends on whether you have a BAEC Household account or not. If you have one, you need to transfer via Avios.com

      • Liz says:

        What happens if you have a household account in both BAEC and Avios and you want to transfer points between Iberia/BA/Avios?

        • TimS says:

          If you have household accounts in both avios and ba you can’t transfer between them.

          That’s because an avios HH account is in a single family name, not individual pooled accounts like ba.

          Your best bet would probably be to break up the avios.com family account. I think Rob has covered how to do this efficiently in a past article.

  • Trevor says:

    I didn’t realise that Iberia Econ rewards were going up. Just as well I already booked LHR-MAD for July else I’d potentially be paying 5k Avios more per person x 4 each way!

    • Matthew says:

      I thought they were the same peak one-way (7,500) and cheaper off peak one-way (6,500)

  • mark2 says:

    Has anyone managed to move any Avios between Avios and Iberia in the last couple of weeks. It always fail when I try on my accounts or my niece’s.

    • Matthew says:

      Yes, worked fine for me but my BA account never got locked out nor did my Iberia a few weeks back.

    • JQ says:

      Might need to try it on all websites in all directions, I can only move Avios into BAEC using avios.com, and out of BAEC using ba.com, and I can’t move between BAEC/IB+ directly.

    • xcalx says:

      You will need to reset the password. Click on the forgotten password and follow the instructions. I needed to do this last week.

      • gnarlyoldgoatdude says:

        Or maybe not.
        I’ve been chasing this on FlyerTalk. Apparently we will need to call IB+ and find a knowledgeable agent to help. Resetting the password may or may not work on its own.

      • mark2 says:

        I tried that, but no difference.
        I will try again manana.

    • Stephen says:

      You need to call Iberia there is a London number. They refer to Madrid. Took a full week to unlock mine but then could combine and made a booking.

  • James says:

    If only Iberia’s website allowed you to book a reward seat!!

    • Rob says:

      I have booked Vueling via their site before, it can be done! And an IB flight to LHR.

      • James says:

        Myself and a bunch of others (see FT) just get an error when trying to book

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.