The Avios were not floating anywhere. They were credited in the first place. Then the next day, a debit for the same amount of Avios appeared on the statement.

With due respect, do YOU know every single article and sub-article of the T&C?

Furthermore, now that I have read the particular article, it says that transfers are only possible to an active account. My understanding of this, is that if the account is not active, then the transfer is not possible and will be refused (not accepted to see the points annulled within hours). @:-)

This being said, I have some update. Staff at EC and IB+ have all been easy to reach by phone and sympathetic to my "cause". They escalated the case to management.

I got a voice mail message call from IB+ (was travelling) asking me to call them back. Nice touch.

I then got a phone call from EC to be told that they will reinstate the Avios (under the one condition that I reactivate my account within 3 months, which is done already).

I have not seen the Avios be credited back yet, but have no reason to doubt they will not show up.

This is good customer service so worth mentioning here, where we tend to write more complaints that praises. ^