Cerebrito

Are Iberia no longer giving priority boarding to IB+ Silver (OWR)? On my flight on Sunday from Madrid, the gentleman in front of me, was arguing quite strongly with the gate agent who said that only IB+ Gold and Platinum could priority board. In the end, the agent let him pass. I am an IB+ Silver, but my boarding pass had "Priority" on it for the boarding group, and I thought the gate agent was mistaken, so I didn't take much notice.

However, I just printed out my boarding pass for this Friday, and it says "Grupo 3" for the boarding group. It has always been "Priority" since I made Silver. It also has my status (PLATA-RUBY) printed after my IB+ number on the boarding pass. Has anyone else seen this? The Iberia website still shows priority boarding as a silver benefit.

If they take that benefit away, it pretty much makes IB+ Silver worthless...

Cerebrito

So the issue with "Grupo 3" on the boarding pass seems to be an issue with Iberia's IT. I had paid for a seat (as Iberia keep giving me the worst window seats down the back of the plane), and this meant I could print out the boarding pass early. When I requested a duplicate boarding pass T-24, it correctly had "Priority" as the boarding group.

As to what the gate agents say, we shall see tomorrow.

Yllanes

That's a relief... Please keep us posted!

LupineChemist

As an aside, are you not able to select seats as a silver?

I haven't had a personal trip in awhile and my work generally gets clasica so I get seat selection anyway.

Cerebrito

Nope, no seat selection with Silver (unless you pay). You need Gold for that (I hope - I just have 4 more flights in the next two weeks to make the 50 I need to qualify).

Cerebrito

Although, Silver is oneworld Ruby, so you can choose your seat from up to 7 days before when traveling with BA. I've not traveled with any other oneworld carriers since I qualified, so I'm not sure how it would work with another airline.

You used to be able to change the randomly assigned seat at check-in T-24 with Iberia, but they changed all that about 6 months ago for the basic fares.

Cerebrito

So for my flight from ORY on Friday, I did get priority boarding (as it was printed on my boarding pass), but the screen at the gate did say "Business/Platino/Oro".

I flew again from Madrid last night, but the airport was in chaos after the introduction of the new rules for checking electronics, and then our flight was moved to T4S which meant nearly everyone on board turned up late and there was no boarding order enforced.

In any case, if you see this link, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...e-benefit.html, in the BA forum, it looks like IAG may be getting ready to remove this benefit across the board.