I'm glad to read in RichLond's RTW trip report that I'm not the only one who found Iberia totally clueless when it comes to OneWorld matters.

I was in London last week, and flew BA roundtrip LHR-MAD for the weekend (one airline down, four to go for the 100,000 bonus - I got to London on United, so that doesn't count!). In Madrid I went to buy tickets on Iberia Shuttle to Barcelona (cheapest roundtrip). When I mentioned I wanted AAdvantage and British Airways credit (one each way - I'm going for the 100,000 on both airlines), three different Iberia agents told me I had to buy my ticket on AA & BA!!. Off to BA to make sure; they agreed this was ridiculous. Admittedly, Iberia probably doesn't sell many tickets in Madrid to passengers wanting other airline mileage.

So I went back and bought the ticket from Iberia, waiting until check-in to mention mileage. The agent seemed unsure what to do, and just wrote my account number on a slip of paper. What's worse, the ticket is "open" (i.e., no date or flight number) since they don't take reservations for the shuttle, and the seating is á la SouthWorst, with plastic boarding pass that you hand back at the gate. That means no receipt showing flight # or date or (most important!) frequent flyer number.

I was so doubtful that I'd ever see the credit - or that I'd be able to convince AA and BA that I really had flown on IB, that Saturday I called IB to book the cheapest roundtrip on Sunday to anywhere except Barcelona. That way I'd get a dated ticket, with a real boarding pass. (A second $200 to Iberia, but cheap "insurance" considering that 50,000 miles x 2 were at stake.) Unfortunately, when I got to the airport on Sunday, the reservations clerk had made my reservation for Saturday, so I had to start over (the flight to Valencia I thought I had booked was now sold out). But eventually I made a turnaround to Bilbao (never even left Bilbao airport) and now have boarding pass receipts with frequent flyer #'s in my hot little hand. This time the Iberia check-in staff seemed more aware what to do with my non-Iberia frequent flyer numbers; maybe part of the problem earlier was shuttle staff.

By the way, the Iberia ticket salesman gave me incorrect tickets (wrong destination - it's a long story). I didn't notice until after I had signed for them, so I had to go back and exchange them for correct ones. He pulled out my signed receipts and tore off my signature, assuring me that now they wouldn't be charged. Given that the tickets were computer generated (albeit on those ancient multi-part forms), I was pretty sure the charges had already gone through the system, and insisted that he do a full credit of the incorrect tickets. Otherwise I wouldn't have any receipt showing I'd returned them. Sure I could have disputed the charges when they showed up, and Iberia couldn't have produced a signed receipt, but I saw no reason I should have to go through that given his mistake.

Next week: American Airlines SFO to PSP round trip; that will leave two more (Cathay and Canadian...maybe this weekend on an Internet fare to Vancouver?) to go!