Iberia Airlines Iberia Plus - Help with BA Award booking USA to IST

My Mom's 60th is coming up this year and I got her and a few other family member to grab the BA 100k signup bonus.
The question now is whether I can avoid Heathrow fees by routing us direct from ORD to MAD to IST.
Anybody know if I will reduce my fees significantly if I book Iberia for award seats?
How do I find Iberia award seats? Does anyone know when they load availability?
They aren't available in Expertflyer and I can't find any searching on their site.
Since its a family vacation, I would really prefer not to have to risk waiting to book until a month out...
Any suggestions/advice is much appreciated.

Taxes into Heathrow on BA are extremely costly. You want to avoid BA into or out of England.

Iberia and American have drastically lower taxes.

Easiest way to find Iberia availability is to sign up and get an Iberia FF number. They will e-mail the number to you. Then sign into Iberia.com using your new number and look for award flights. I myself am looking for award flights out of Madrid to Chicago.

Be creative in your booking. BA will fly into Budapest or Paris and I believe Frankfort. Try those routings. Check BA flight route map and find other cities that BA to flies into. Worry about getting over the pond first. Check other outbound cities. I'm in Chicago as well. When I checked for flights from ORD to LHR I didn't get the business tickets I wanted. But, there is greater availability from JFK. I planned my JFK - LHR leg first and then filled in ORD - JFK. You might need to fly coach on the domestic leg. Miami - Madrid is another popular route on Iberia.

I myself found routing on American into LHR. But I am booking for next year. Your best bet in booking award travel is to start checking 330 days from your trip and keep hoping for the best. Good Luck

.....Easiest way to find Iberia availability is to sign up and get an Iberia FF number. They will e-mail the number to you. Then sign into Iberia.com using your new number and look for award flights. I myself am looking for award flights out of Madrid to Chicago...

First, whose miles are you using? If AA miles (which is what I use) I was under the impression that award availability indicated on IB's site did NOT translate to the award availability for other OW members. I had thought in order to see that inventory you had to use either BA's or QF's site.

And when I was doing my searches this seemed correct since I saw way more availbility on IB's site than I saw on BA and when I called AA, they had the availability corresponding with BA's inventory not IB's.

I'm confused.

The OP is apparently using BA miles, so using the BA site to search for IB seats is the best way in any case.

The oneworld interactive map (http://onw.innosked.com/?show=MAP) can be your friend to check routings. IB has one daily MAD-IST flight and one five days a week. ORD-MAD, but consider BOS, MIA, JFK etc. for seat availability if necessary. Or even AA to BUD and on to IST via Malév.

It's not Heathrow fees (APD) you want to avoid, it's the horrendous BA YQ (fuel surcharges) you want to avoid. (And of course, AA flies to MAD as well.)



First, whose miles are you using? If AA miles (which is what I use) I was under the impression that award availability indicated on IB's site did NOT translate to the award availability for other OW members. I had thought in order to see that inventory you had to use either BA's or QF's site.

And when I was doing my searches this seemed correct since I saw way more availbility on IB's site than I saw on BA and when I called AA, they had the availability corresponding with BA's inventory not IB's.

I'm confused.

How do I find Iberia award seats? Does anyone know when they load availability?
They aren't available in Expertflyer and I can't find any searching on their site.

The KVS Tool supports Award Availability on all OneWorld member carriers (incl. IB):
http://Help.KVSTool.com/#AwardUpgradeClasses_OneWorld

How do I find Iberia award seats?

The only way outside of the Iberia website is to use the BA.com or Qantas.com.au Oneworld award search tools. They are free and what other services screen scrape from for their data. Another service is AwardNexus.com (http://awardnexus.com), which has a free version for FT members. It screen scrapes both sources as well, but it allows for multi-city and multi-day searches.

I believe that booking any reward using BA miles on BA.com will sting you with the Fuel Surcharges, so flying Iberia may not have any benefit at all.

Double check with the BAEC forum though.