Iberia Avios 9000 points per booking dont need to fly

[I love to travel]

Great deal check it out, note cannot transfer to BA avios.

Promo Of The Year: Earn 90,000 Iberia Avios For $330 - One Mile at a Time

My issue is cannot for the life of me work out hot to book any qantas flights to use them. No Australian city comes up. Any ideas?

 

[sudoer]

Edit: never mind!

 

[I love to travel]

No its 9000 per booking to a max of 90000

 

[Coathanger]

I'm in after booking 10 flights from Madrid to Seville.

I love to travel did you manage to figure out how to originate awards from Australia as I'll be looking to do the same?

 

[I love to travel]

No i never did so gave it a miss

 

[opusman]

This suggests it is possible: How To Find Award Availability With Iberia Avios - One Mile at a Time

 

[dajop]

Sometimes life is way too short for this sort of thing. I looked at it, and found a way of seeing availability ex-Australia. Only found availability long haul on BA, and very limited domestic QF availability (which did not correlate well with what BA sees, IB much more restrictive). Trying to price the flights - error our each time. And every time I submitted a new query went through Captcha. Decided that not worth it.

 

[glasszon]

Did anyone end up going for this promotion? I was going to do it this weekend until I read their press release which included the following statement:

The promotion is available when the tickets are bought on iberia.com in the following countries: Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Russia, United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico and USA, regardless of the origin of the flight.

This wasn't in the T&C, but is enough to put me off because I have no interest in filing for 10 chargebacks and explaining to the bank why I should get my money back.

 

[I love to travel]

As noted above I opted out. I really only wanted it for domestic flights. I like their creative thinking though.

 

[Gold Member]

Did anyone end up going for this promotion? I was going to do it this weekend until I read their press release which included the following statement:

The promotion is available when the tickets are bought on iberia.com in the following countries: Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Russia, United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico and USA, regardless of the origin of the flight.

This wasn't in the T&C, but is enough to put me off because I have no interest in filing for 10 chargebacks and explaining to the bank why I should get my money back.

I maxed out my Iberia account and even created another to leverage further (20 flights at $18 USD each) on Saturday 22nd. I’m optimistic that the points can indeed be sent to BA (after 3 months of IB account creation) despite an IB rep providing strange feedback via twitface that you’ll have a negative 90k balance if you do transfer.

In ether case, using the advanced search tool on IB offers the usual domestic QF routes however award results produces an error. This maybe due to 0 Miles in my accounts or just one of many bugs on their pathetic website. The IB oneworld redemption chart is about 10-20% more expensive than BA for the sweet spot mileage bands of 3,4 and 5. But who’s arguing at these ridiculous prices.

I’m following all the bloggers closely for updates. Even if I can’t use the miles before December 1st, I might even look to sell the IB flights (eg. QF West-east Coast biz) for ~$1k return which would be a massive ROI. IB allows you to book in someone else’s name.

Looking forward to playing this game. Anyone else on board?

 

[burmans]

The promotion is available when the tickets are bought on iberia.com in the following countries: Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Russia, United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico and USA, regardless of the origin of the flight.

This was the bit that scared me off, along with the fact I really don't need these points at the moment.

 

[Gold Member]

This was the bit that scared me off, along with the fact I really don't need these points at the moment.

This condition simply meant you had to buy them from one of those Iberia country specific sites. For example, the US site of Iberia.com etc.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’m optimistic that the points can indeed be sent to BA (after 3 months of IB account creation) despite an IB rep providing strange feedback via twitface that you’ll have a negative 90k balance if you do transfer.

Why is it strange? If your IB account has 90K miles in it and you transfer those to BA, the IB account will go to 'negative' 90K, because you have no miles eligible for transfer.

If you were a regular IB user you'd have to pay back those 90K miles.

If the terms and conditions are upheld (cannot transfer to BA), it's possible BA might reverse the entries at some stage.

 

[Gold Member]

...

Why is it strange? If your IB account has 90K miles in it and you transfer those to BA, the IB account will go to 'negative' 90K, because you have no miles eligible for transfer.

If you were a regular IB user you'd have to pay back those 90K miles.

If the terms and conditions are upheld (cannot transfer to BA), it's possible BA might reverse the entries at some stage.

If you have 90k miles, and then transfer them all, you then have a 0 miles balance. Very simple math. How can you possibly have -90k Miles??

The original terms and conditions published on Saturday 22nd did not state anything about not being able to transfer to BA. The strange twitface response (IB rep poor English) trying to clarify the situation when asked if we could transfer them to BA introduced this ambiguity. However, none of the promo terms explicitly stated that you cannot transfer them to BA if you took a snapshot of all the T&Cs over the weekend. If they do impose this restriction, that’s a different matter and something I will vigorously pursue with Iberia because they cannot just change the rules mid promo to suit themselves. Sounds a lot like IHG promos eh. The IB website still offers Avios transfers to BA and to Avios.com as it always has.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The original terms and conditions published on Saturday 22nd did not state anything about not being able to transfer to BA. The strange twitface response (IB rep poor English) trying to clarify the situation when asked if we could transfer them to BA introduced this ambiguity. However, none of the promo terms explicitly stated that you cannot transfer them to BA if you took a snapshot of all the T&Cs over the weekend. If they do impose this restriction, that’s a different matter and something I will vigorously pursue with Iberia because they cannot just change the rules mid promo to suit themselves. Sounds a lot like IHG promos eh. The IB website still offers Avios transfers to BA and to Avios.com as it always has.

It was discussed on onemileatatime when the promo was first announced that these particular avios had different terms and conditions attached to them - they had to be redeemed by 1 December 2018 or they would be withdrawn from the member's account. As such, this implied that these miles were to be treated separately.

At a broad reading it makes sense that if you can only use these avios for a redemption by 1 December, that a condition they couldn't be transferred out also applies - unless that also qualifies as a redemption? Iberia confirmed this as early as 22 June.

 

[Gold Member]

It was discussed on onemileatatime when the promo was first announced that these particular avios had different terms and conditions attached to them - they had to be redeemed by 1 December 2018 or they would be withdrawn from the member's account. As such, this implied that these miles were to be treated separately.

At a broad reading it makes sense that if you can only use these avios for a redemption by 1 December, that a condition they couldn't be transferred out also applies - unless that also qualifies as a redemption? Iberia confirmed this as early as 22 June.

Redeeming by December 1st does not exclude transferring them. Broad reading or not, none of the feedback from Iberia or the official T&Cs have stated outright that you cannot transfer them to BA - these are assumptions made by some bloggers and interpretations by readers. But we still don’t have any certainty so I guess one of us will be right in 10 days. Will keep you posted.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Redeeming by December 1st does not exclude transferring them. Broad reading or not, none of the feedback from Iberia or the official T&Cs have stated outright that you cannot transfer them to BA - these are assumptions made by some bloggers and interpretations by readers. But we still don’t have any certainty so I guess one of us will be right in 10 days. Will keep you posted.

There's no doubt you can transfer them. IB says so. But they say they will debit your IB avios account for the amount, which may put your account into the negative. What they do after that is the issue - recoup from BA? If so, does that cancel any BA issues avios awards?

IB Plus' rules state that a transfer of avios to British airways does not equal a redemption: Iberia Plus programme general conditions - Iberia

A monthly check will be performed of the expiry of the total Avios balance in the account of members who have not made any movement to earn or use Avios in 36 months. Forthese purposes, Avios transfers carried out between the programmes BA Executive Club, the Avios Programme (in the UK), the Iberia Plus Programme and any other programme which may use Avios as currency are not considered movements as they do not involve collection or redemption. Transfers between Iberia Plus members are also not considered movements.​

If the terms of this offer state they must be redeemed by 1 December, and a transfer is not a redemption, I'm not sure where that leaves the validity of the points.

 

[Gold Member]

There's no doubt you can transfer them. IB says so. But they say they will debit your IB avios account for the amount, which may put your account into the negative. What they do after that is the issue - recoup from BA? If so, does that cancel any BA issues avios awards?

IB Plus' rules state that a transfer of avios to British airways does not equal a redemption: Iberia Plus programme general conditions - Iberia

A monthly check will be performed of the expiry of the total Avios balance in the account of members who have not made any movement to earn or use Avios in 36 months. Forthese purposes, Avios transfers carried out between the programmes BA Executive Club, the Avios Programme (in the UK), the Iberia Plus Programme and any other programme which may use Avios as currency are not considered movements as they do not involve collection or redemption. Transfers between Iberia Plus members are also not considered movements.​

If the terms of this offer state they must be redeemed by 1 December, and a transfer is not a redemption, I'm not sure where that leaves the validity of the points.

As a sister company to BA under the IAG parent company umbrella its possible that if they wanted to pursue a negative balance they could as they may cooperate far more transparently than between other competing Frequent Flyer Programs. But ultimately, the sticking point for me is the whole 'put your account into the negative'. I stated previously that I don't understand how this is possible (have you ever seen a negative points balance in a FFP?). To reiterate my previous post, if you have 90K, then transfer 90K, you then have 0K left over as a balance. That's not a negative balance which doesn't trigger the issues you have raised despite whatever some IB representative on twitface tried their best to explain in English.

WRT the transfers not being considered a movement, that's fine. Given the lacklustre state of the IB website and their Iberia Plus account experience, I have my doubts whether their systems are anywhere near advanced enough to perform even these basic checks. Besides, there are many ways to cheaply and easily credit a flight or from one of their many partners to earn miles to your IB account to trigger some activity which would meet that condition if ever enforced.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

If you transfer out the 90k, which are not considered a redemption, in 1 December IB will withdraw any miles not redeemed - up to 90k - from the account. If your starting balance is less than the miles in the account, it would put it in to negative. You’d also potentially lose the 90k in the BA account as they weren’t eligible for transfer, so they’d be wiped. Whether or not IB’s systems can cope is one issue. And the second issue is probably ‘do you care’? unless you had status in IB’s program, which you relied on (and were crediting flights), the account being in negative is unlikely to matter much.

I have seen accounts in a negative balance. LH used to allow it for Senators. My LM was in negative for a short time while they had to unravel a ticketing/pricing issue.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Here is an example of an overdrawn account - duplication of transfer leaves Velocity account in negative: Velocity Frequent Flyer account - any experience with overdrawn points? - Point Hacks