Other European Frequent Flyer Programs - IB Award Ticket Hell(p)

Does anyone have a lot of experience dealing with changing dates on Iberia award tickets booked in Business?
Here's the story: I wanted to use my points to obtain a Business Class ticket between MAD and AGP for my summer holiday because I needed the flexibility of an open return incase I needed to race back to the office in MAD, and basically did not have a precise return date in mind.
Now I am looking to return on Monday, and sure enough, IB is telling me there are no ¨plazas¨ available for ¨business class award travel¨ yet there are between 6 and 11 Business Class seats available for sale on EACH of the FIVE AGP-MAD flights for Monday. They also have told me that coach is available which at this point is fine by me BUT they say if I am to chose coach, they will be unable to credit me the difference in award points between coach and Business (!!) This is about a forfeiture of nearly 500 points. I would first cancel the return, get the points credited, and then just get another round trip award ticket before risking losing that many points!
The agent has told me, that because there are so many Business seats available for sale, that if they remain unsold by x amount of time (however she did not give a specific date and monday is just 2 days away!) they might place them back into the pool of award travel and to just keep calling or checking the web site.
Does anyone have experience dealing with this? Any advise?

If I'm following your post correctly then I would just cancel your business class redemption totally booking and book again in economy.

This is MAD-AGP we are talking about here. It looks like you already have lounge access, so why bother with business class?

However, if you think you might want or need to race back to madrid, I would seriously consider whether using a redemption booking is wise - there might be NO redemption seats available on the return when you need it!

While I know we are talking about the summer season, and stuff from MAD to the coast attracts a premium, I think you may be better just getting something when you need it. There will always be something from AGP-MAD.

Does anyone have a lot of experience dealing with changing dates on Iberia award tickets booked in Business?
Here's the story: I wanted to use my points to obtain a Business Class ticket between MAD and AGP for my summer holiday because I needed the flexibility of an open return incase I needed to race back to the office in MAD, and basically did not have a precise return date in mind.
Now I am looking to return on Monday, and sure enough, IB is telling me there are no ¨plazas¨ available for ¨business class award travel¨ yet there are between 6 and 11 Business Class seats available for sale on EACH of the FIVE AGP-MAD flights for Monday. They also have told me that coach is available which at this point is fine by me BUT they say if I am to chose coach, they will be unable to credit me the difference in award points between coach and Business (!!) This is about a forfeiture of nearly 500 points. I would first cancel the return, get the points credited, and then just get another round trip award ticket before risking losing that many points!
The agent has told me, that because there are so many Business seats available for sale, that if they remain unsold by x amount of time (however she did not give a specific date and monday is just 2 days away!) they might place them back into the pool of award travel and to just keep calling or checking the web site.
Does anyone have experience dealing with this? Any advise?


Daniel, I can´t believe Iberia doing this on "Platinum" call center... If you are Platinum and you have this issue please contact Platinum and they will put you on "waitlisted" Business award ticket. "Space control department" use to take care of that petitions and they use to confirm them to Platinum/Golds Iberia Plus.

"Space control department"

I'm trying to figure out what that's called in Spanish... :)

thanks for the help guys, i actually got it resolved in my favour, it was just a bit nervewrecking to not know for sure if I would get a seat or not.
According to a friendly rep at IB Plus: During heavy vacation times, award inventory levels are lower on certain routes due to Iberia thinking they may be able to sell some of these seats last minute (mind you, aside from an extremly time-pressed business traveler, I dont know who in their right mind would pay 298 €uros one way last minute Málaga-Madrid)
Anyway, with a Business Class award ticket, I do have the option of changing my flight date, provided there are seats available on the date of travel, even if no award seats are showing as available, and this is exactly what I did, I showed up at the Málaga airport after having checked to ensure that, on the 2 afternoon flights, there were still showing 8 and 11 seats respectively unoccupied so I figured I would have a good shot, and sure enough, got put on the very first flight, no questions asked.