Other European Frequent Flyer Programs - Rate Iberia Airlines Iberia Plus

We are going to review Iberia Airlines Iberia Plus in the October issue of InsideFlyer magazine and would like your input.

If you would like to participate, please post your response in the thread with the pros and cons of membership in Iberia Plus and grade the program from A to F (A being the highest grade). You can include a plus or minus with the rating.

You can also respond directly to me at dmankell@insideflyer.com.
Thank you!

I think Iberia is a great, underutilized program useful for mainly intra-European flights. I am constantly amazed at the flight availability- nearly every flight on every date I've wanted was available. Since I am US based I usually transfer my Amex Membership Rewards points to Iberia which I think gives great bang for your points. I recently used 32,000 AMEX for a MAD-TLV roundtrip in coach which was selling for $1,800US. Additionally, intra-Spain flights cost only 9,000 Amex points- which is a great value.

The only downside is the no-cancellation policy on the cheap award tickets. However, after calling and explaining my situation and then emailing and faxing my rationale, they refunded my points which allowed me to book a different flight.

Overall, I have had very positive experiences with Iberia plus and I would rate them overall A:
Award availability- A+
Redemption value- A+
Customer service- B+
Ease of website- B

I'm going to have to sort-of disagree with the previous poster. I think the vast majority of people don't use a program as a conduit for the MR points (though it's a good tip!).

IB still cling to an outdated "points" currency instead of miles like everyone else (except for JK), which makes it difficult to compare. From an earning/burning standpoint, IB+ is one of the worst in the world. Let's look at a couple of typical examples:

- Cheap flight in economy MAD-LHR: 15 points each way, 30 total. To obtain a restricted economy ticket on the same route will cost me 1000 points. That means I need to fly 34 round trips MAD-LHR to get one free trip in economy, and that's a ticket that can't be changed. A flexible ticket will cost me 50% more.

- Business class flight BCN-LAX on a partner like BA or AA: 340 points each way, 680 total. To redeem a business class flight on the same route will cost me 6,300 points. So I need 10 full-fare business class round trips on that route to get one free one.

They do offer a "Clase Azul" on IB metal at a reduced number of points for economy flights only but these are highly restricted.

In addition, their elite status thresholds are higher than most other programs.

For someone who lives outside of Spain, I think IB+ is completely worthless. And I doubt that matters to IB, since they are interested in the Spanish market where they do very well. For someone who lives here, there are a few things that make it more interesting.

- They offer some great promotions most of the year - 25% discount on certain routes, occasional 2-for-1, oftentimes double miles for using online checkin, etc.

- There's almost nothing you can can buy in Spain that doesn't come with IB points. Gas, hotels, restaurants, newspapers, wine, insurance, banking, the list is nearly endless. None of these give much in the way of points, but if you live here and use that card religiously they eventually add up.

I have an IB+ account (living in Spain you almost can't avoid it) that just soaks up points but it's my catch-all for OW and Vueling flights, so it never has much of a balance and no status.

If they wanted to be competitive with other programs (and I'm positive they don't) they would switch to miles and bring their earning/burning in line with the others.

As a side but topical note: Spanair (JK)'s program, called Spanair Plus, is pretty much identical to IB's: points not miles, and earning/burning are the same. When the new owners relaunched the Spanair brand a couple of months ago they opened a public forum and invited people to make suggestions for what they wanted out of the new airline - publicly! - and allow others to vote on it. The number one item - by a huge margin - was "dump Spanair plus and join Miles & More". Way down the list in second place was flights to LHR and then the usual stuff you would expect about wanting better meals and stop losing luggage.

I fully agree with Alanw. I would even dare to say that IB Plus is worse than FB even after the 1st/April changes.

I also wanted to add(some things have been mentioned but I consider them very relevant):

- Award availability in TATL Biz is very limited, practically non-existant if you do not have status.
- In discounted fares you obtain very few points.
- To obtain some status, unless it has changed, part of the flights have to be in IB metal.
- Contact number for basic members is through a telephone with a silly cost(0,41 €/minute)
- earning/burning points is very bad. I guess that if you work in a spanish multinational/bank, based in Madrid, and travel often to Southamerica in Biz Class or First(Lan), you are OK, but other than that, it takes ages to collect a good amount points

Last but not least, if you are based in Barcelona, apart from domestic destinations, you can only fly IB to go to Madrid and connect from there and to London, but most of the other flights are with their Low cost airline Clickair/Vueling.

The good part of the programm is the double or triple mile promotions, but their fares ex-Spain in TATL Biz, are 100/200% more expensive than Z fares from other carriers, so when you pay from your own pocket, the decision is easy.

I still have the card because I get some points from my CC, and for the odd flight to London, but other than that, I consider the program worthless.

I stopped caring about Iberia Plus years ago, after having the made the same calculations as alanw has made in his post and comparing them to (back then) Qualiflyer and Frequence Plus. The number of intra-European Economy flights that you have to make to get one free ticket or get any status was (is) just ridiculous.

I realise that (now) Miles&More and Flying Blue are not great anymore either, but I do not even want to the maths again. I walked away completely from Iberia when they basically decided to use BCN as a low cost terminal, having hardly any Iberia flights there anymore and moving everything to Clickair.

Speaking from someone who has had Iberia Plus for over 15 years and has had everything from the Classic no-status card to the Platinum card with them, I have seen the best of them and I have seen the worst of them.

I agree with all of the original posters, in that I too am fully convinced they are not interested in the least bit in being competitive with any other frequent flyer programmes in the world, in that they really do their own thing which is in many occasions, COMPLETELY senseless!

Also, earning (and in my case maintaining) status with them if you are flying in coach, even long-hauls, is practically impossible. I am convinced that IB Plus is geared solely at the premium traveler who either pays Business Class fares (however you do earn the same amount of points in Reduced Business as you do in Full-Fare Business to correct a previous poster) or the higher Coach fares (which in this case, three different higher coach fare codes would earn you the same ¨full fare¨ points)

If you do earn Platinum status, they really do roll out the red carpet for you however and you hardly hear the word ¨no¨ on anything. A limousine comes to get you at your home or office and take you to the airport. Pretty spiffy.

If you have Classic status, you will NOT recieve any special treatment whatsoever, in fact you have to use a very expensive hotline that charges 0,71 € per minute to handle any telephone inquiry. The jump from Classic to Silver status at 1250 points is a struggle for many and Silver status is practically useless (no lounge access) Classic customers can only use points to upgrade from full Y fare, which is senseless because the full Y fare is often times priced higher than Reduced Business Class.

That said, their promotions, bonuses, and point-accumulating relationships with so many other companies within Spain, make it the best frequent flyer programme to have in Spain, as you can quite literally earn points and very generous bonuses, for just about everything you do.

Award ticket availibility has also been quite good, I must say, you are usually able to get A SEAT on most flights.

Just to clarify my post-
1) I only use my US AMEX points on Iberia redemptions, which I find to be stellar values for intra-Spain/Europe (longhaul notsomuch).
2) Availability for awards is great IME.. I believe they even won a Freddie for this.

I've never banked a mile to Iberia directly, so my rating should be taken into consideration from that perspective. After looking at the earning chart, it seems like a really stingy program for those who have to earn IB points by flying coach.

Unlike other people here, I found availability for TATL Biz very bad.
I have arround 8.000 points which I want to burn soon because at the end of the year will start expiring, and I have not been able to find seats available to the destinations I want, in spite of having tried many different dates.

One thing that is good about the programm, is that taxes/fees for award tickets are very low compared with other FFP.

Well, for what it counts, it saved my last January. Unofficially, I was told that IB club passengers, even Classic cardholders, jump ahead ordinary passengers in standby queues. This was a lifesaver at the time of the ATC strike and bad weather cancellations.

Apart from that, unless you bank on promotions of double or trebble miles, point collection is a tiresome activity. I am 200 points short of a OW flight from LHR to SVQ, after three years...

Speaking from someone who has had Iberia Plus for over 15 years and has had everything from the Classic no-status card to the Platinum card with them, I have seen the best of them and I have seen the worst of them.

I agree with all of the original posters, in that I too am fully convinced they are not interested in the least bit in being competitive with any other frequent flyer programmes in the world, in that they really do their own thing which is in many occasions, COMPLETELY senseless!

Also, earning (and in my case maintaining) status with them if you are flying in coach, even long-hauls, is practically impossible. I am convinced that IB Plus is geared solely at the premium traveler who either pays Business Class fares (however you do earn the same amount of points in Reduced Business as you do in Full-Fare Business to correct a previous poster) or the higher Coach fares (which in this case, three different higher coach fare codes would earn you the same ¨full fare¨ points)

If you do earn Platinum status, they really do roll out the red carpet for you however and you hardly hear the word ¨no¨ on anything. A limousine comes to get you at your home or office and take you to the airport. Pretty spiffy.

If you have Classic status, you will NOT recieve any special treatment whatsoever, in fact you have to use a very expensive hotline that charges 0,71 € per minute to handle any telephone inquiry. The jump from Classic to Silver status at 1250 points is a struggle for many and Silver status is practically useless (no lounge access) Classic customers can only use points to upgrade from full Y fare, which is senseless because the full Y fare is often times priced higher than Reduced Business Class.

That said, their promotions, bonuses, and point-accumulating relationships with so many other companies within Spain, make it the best frequent flyer programme to have in Spain, as you can quite literally earn points and very generous bonuses, for just about everything you do.

Award ticket availibility has also been quite good, I must say, you are usually able to get A SEAT on most flights.

Well, I´m Platinum Member since 2 years... and I told you... they do not take any care of me (just LCG check-in supervisor upgrade me 2 times due to Y overbooking). None invitation to any event, None UPG on TATL full Y flights but "empty" J seats... (quite strange as well).

IB+ it's a good or bad program, depending of who pays your tickets and what fare you use.

The real problem with IB+ is that it's useful only if you live in MAD or connec thru MAD to go South America. The rest of the Spanish airports are no longer interest of MAD (there is a spanish joke saying that BCN airport it's the T5 of MAD airport).

Of course this happends with other airlines as well, but the point system makes you need a calculator to know if you take that and that you will convert into points here only if the fare with that other airline it's not T or W in example.

I also hold an AMEX and the conversion to JK it's far better than with IB.

I moved from PAR to MAD 2 years ago and was thrilled by discovering IB+ having knowned FB.

I fly eco on cheap fares.

FB gives ridiculously few miles, exactly like IB+.

When you book your award flight, you will hardly ever pay more than 40€ in taxes with IB as FB charges taxes that looks like cheap Y fares!

They offer double miles for all tickets booked online :D

They offer very often 25% more, double or triple miles on some destinations ^

Redemption looks the same as FB to me.

the "Azul" award class, which is the same as the FB PromoAward rates is avail., even if quite limited, on all flights unlike FB´s temp. offers :o

Iberia´s T4 cannot be compared to the horrendous CDG either.

I tasted FB gold, only worthwile perk to me were the lounges but I am happy of my change to IB+ for the worth of my points to redeem eco flights.

I completely agree with Pitbrian. It is true that IB+ from an earning standpoint is really bad. But just because of that, their award availability is great and has very low requirements in terms of mileage compared with almost every singel airline in the world. So if you have the option to transfer Amex points for IB+ points, then a new world of possibilities opens for you. Just to give you an example. I have just booked a RT ticket from CVG to ORD around christmas season (so peak period) with AA using IB+. I paid for a coach ticket 687 points, which equals to 9,500 miles (based on Amex redeption costs). Now you tell me any other airline that allows you to book a round trip ticket in the US for 9,500 miles, even on short flights.