Earn Up To 50,000 Avios With Iberia But Get Your Tactics Right! (Possibly Targeted)

an airplane flying in the sky

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With very little fanfare Iberia has launched a promotion which allows flyers to earn up to 50,000 Avios when flying between Europe and North American on select airlines. Put simply this is Iberia’s version of the recently launched American Airlines promotion where flyers can earn 50,000 AAdvantage miles and British Airways’ targeted promotion (UK & Ireland only) where you can earn up to 50,000 British Airways Avios.

The promotion runs from 9 May to 31 July and may be targeted as you need to be logged in to your Iberia Plus account to view it and no big announcement appears to have been made by the airline.

Head on over to Iberia.com and click on the Iberia Plus link in the top right corner. Log in and, from there, click on “My Promotions” in the menu that drops down. You should see the promotion on the next page that opens.

iberia-pluss-50000-avios-promotion

As far as the promotion goes it’s pretty restrictive compared to the similar American Airlines promotion but that’s not the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a promotion as poorly explained as this one.

It’s so poorly explained that at no point does the promotion page even tell flyers how many Avios they’ll earn per trip taken!

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It’s probably safe to assume that the Avios will be earned in a similar way to how AAdvantage Miles can be earned in American’s promotion (see below) but, if you’re concerned about the details, you could email Iberia Plus customer services.

This is how American Airlines is awarding miles in its promotion:

Screen-Shot-2016-05-10-at-19.45.56

There is further confusion in the promotion’s wording:

The promotion details state:

Your promotional Avios will be recorded in your account from 1 July 2016 once the registration has finished.

But then they go on to say:

Registration before 31 July is required to be able to benefit from the promotion.

So does the registration period end on 1 July or 31 July?!

To be on the safe side just register right now (there’s no upside to waiting) and then Iberia can’t claim you weren’t registered in time.

Iberia Business Class Airbus A330-200Iberia Business Class Airbus A330

Things to note about the Iberia Promotion:

  • As long as you register before the deadline (let’s assume it’s 1 July 2016) the flights you take between 9 May and 31 July will be eligible for the promotion.
  • One-way travel will not count for this promotion.
  • Flights on Iberia, British Airways, American Airlines & Finnair are eligible for the promotion.
  • It would appear that all fare classes are eligible for the promotion.
  • Only direct flights count
  • You will only earn bonus Avios for the first two round trips you credit to your Iberia Plus account (more on this below).

Tactics To Employ

If you happen to be flying more than two round trips between North American and Europe you need to be sure you’re earning as many miles/Avios as you can because, if you’re not careful, you could really miss out.

The key thing to note is this:

You will only earn bonus Avios on up to two round trips and, as there is no way of choosing which trips those are, you will earn the bonuses on your first two round trips that you credit to Iberia Plus.

So let’s take an example where, during the promotion period, a passenger has four round trips between the US and Europe on Iberia/BA/AA/Finnair:

  • Trip 1 – Economy Class
  • Trip 2 – Economy Class
  • Trip 3 – Business Class
  • Trip 4 – First Class

If this passenger registers for the Iberia Plus promotion and credits all of his/her flights to Iberia Plus, he/she will only earn bonus Avios on the first two round trips – 4,000 bonus Avios in total – trips 3 and 4 will not qualify for the promotion and that’s a lot of bonus Avios that the passenger missed out on.

american-airlines-767-300-refurbishedAmerican Airlines Business Class 767-300

So, what should you do?

  1. Make sure that you have both an Iberia Plus and an American Airlines AAdvantage account.
  2. Decide which of those programs offers you the points/miles you value most.
  3. Choose which flights you credit to which loyalty program based on your decision in point 2.

To clarify: If I was faced with the situation above and my only consideration was maximizing the Avios/Miles I could earn (i.e I wasn’t concerned about earning elite qualifying miles or tier points) I would do this:

I would make sure that I had my Iberia Plus frequent flyer number associated with my first two trips (earning 4,000 Avios) and my American Airlines AAdvantage number associated with my second two trips (earning 40,000 AAdvantage Miles) because I value AAdvantage Miles more highly than I value Avios.

Don’t forget that you can change which loyalty program you credit your oneWorld flights to on a flight by flight basis so you can pick and choose which flights get credited to which program.

If I wasn’t to employ the above tactics in this situation I would end up missing out on a lot of AAdvantage Miles.

It’s also worth remembering the British Airways promotion (if you’ve been targeted for it) if you have 5 or more trips during the qualifying period – you would then have 3 loyalty programs between which you can distribute your flights.

Finnair A350XWB ReviewFinnair’s new Business Class on the Airbus A350

Bottom Line

The truly terrible wording of the promotion aside, this is a nice way to earn a few bonus Avios if you happen to be flying during the promotion period. We’ve seen more lucrative promotions in the past but, in the absence of anything better, this isn’t too bad.

The two most important thing to remember are:

  1. Register for the promotion.
  2. If you have more than two flights in the promotion period remember to think about which airline’s loyalty program you’re crediting your flights to – don’t leave miles or Avios on the table…that’s just a waste 🙂

I’ll be sticking with the American Airlines promotion for the time being (I don’t have 3+ USA/Europe flights booked between now and 31 July so I don’t have a need to spread my trips out between loyalty programs) but you should decide which points/miles you value most and go from there.

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