Yorkshire Traveller

We have just booked flights to the USA ex Dublin in the current BA sale.

We will be returning from Miami via Madrid to Dublin on Iberia (our first time on Iberia in many years).

A couple of questions. Our flight from MIA to MAD is in business class but our connecting flight to DUB (same booking/ticket) is in economy. Will we have access to the lounge in Madrid whilst waiting for our connection? [I know we will have access to the arrivals lounge but assume we will have to exit in order to gain entry, would rather just stay in transit].

Also, how far in advance is it possible to select our seats for the MIA-MAD sector, the Iberia website currently says not available.

Thanks for any advice.

Oaxaca

Yes, you should in theory have access (I'm assuming no status). Oneworld rules are that if you are connecting to/from a long haul J/F flight on the same day (or before 6am the following day), you get the lounge access appropriate to the long haul class of travel at the connecting airport regardless of class on short haul connection, as long as it is oneworld. I'm not aware of any exception to this on IB or at MAD, apart from Vueling flights, as they are not OW. Hang on to your MIA-MAD BPs to be on the safe side.

Assuming your MAD-DUB is IB or I2 metal and not a widebody, your long haul will arrive at T4S and your connection will depart from T4, so the lounge airside would be the IB Dali lounge. It's not as good as the Velazquez in T4S, but still a very decent lounge.

However, when connecting from non-Schengen origin to non-Schengen destination at MAD, you may be met on the air bridge to go on a bus which allows you to bypass immigration. If that is from T4S to T4, it might put you in the non-Schengen part of T4 which is separated from the lounge by passport control. I've never done that bus transfer. I guess you could ignore that bus transfer and go from T4S to T4 departures via the normal route of immigration, shuttle train and transfer security.

Can't help on the seat selection I'm afraid.

Yorkshire Traveller

Thanks for the advice on the lounge Oaxaca.

I phoned Iberia with regard to or seat selection and they just advised that they are not yet available and to try later (when?).

Oaxaca

I have edited about non-Schengen to non-Schengen, not sure if you read before or after I added that.

spainflyer

My experience is, if the Iberia site tells you seat selection is unavailable, it will be unavailable until close to the flight date (perhaps minus 24h). I would suggest calling Iberia and trying to do it on the phone, with the seat map in front of you for reference. Failing that, as many others have said on these boardsyou can often do it on the Finnair site. Mucha suerte!

Yorkshire Traveller

Hi spainflyer

Thanks for your suggestions. I've phoned Iberia who said that as this was a British Airways booking with the second part of our journey (MAD-DUB) booked as a codeshare that we could not pre select seats (!). Don't think that this is correct, besides, the main flight I want to select is MIA-MAD which is booked as an IB flight number.

Contacted Iberia via facebook (who were very helpful) and they checked and said that there was a fault with Iberia's IT systems not showing the seat map and therefore not able to select a seat and that I should check back again later in the year. BA reservations also told me that the seat map was unavailable to them.

I have tried to select seats using the Amadeus link from the Royal Jordanian website but this just gives an error message when trying to chose seats.

geo1005

Data point: Flying IB in business late this year JFK-MAD return (Dec 2016) on an award mileage ticket from American. The IB website said we could not select seats yet I was able to phone in and select seats. Those selections now show on the IB website but I can't change/modify online...

Yorkshire Traveller

You may be able to modify your seats by using the Amadeus function having accessed your booking via the Royal Jordanian website www.rj.com

Yorkshire Traveller

An update - with a positive outcome.

I contacted IB again yesterday evening via facebook to advise that I could still not access the seat reservation system. They responded this morning saying that they would contact the relevant department for me and asked what seats we would like.

An hour later they got back to me with our seat reservations, and, the seat map is now available for selection.

I find seat selection is easily accomplished using the Amadeus link from the Royal Jordanian website www.rj.com (manage my booking).