reward ticket cancel/change fees
 

If I book a reward (AVIOS) ticket and then want to cancel the trip, does anyone know what the fee is? Also, can i change the dates without penalty?
Thanks.

It depends... If you book "blue class" (inflexible Eco reward) then you'd loose both the points and fees (though not all taxes as required by law, the amount of taxes to be refund will depend on the country where you booked from and the mood of the agent processing your request).

For flexible and Business reward tickets, you will be reimbursed (check the fare details when booking the reward to check details) taxes but not potential fees.

These fees vary if you use your points on Iberia flights or OW and the dates!

"Blue class" is now refundable with the switch to Avios.

There should be a 25 euro charge for award flight cancellations. I'm pretty sure there is no charge to change the dates on flights in "flexible" and "business", but I haven't tried that under the new rules.

It depends on the flight. Post November 16 2011, with the introduction of Avios:

Iberia Flights (incl. Air Nostrum - excl. Vueling)

Clase Azul X (Blue Class/Restricted Economy): Changeable and refundable for a 25€ fee.
Clase Turista T (Unrestricted Economy): Free changes and refunds.
Clase Business U: Changeable and refundable for a 25€ fee.

Oneworld Flights or itinerary containing OW flights: no changes or refunds possible.


With the merger I thought that they were going to follow BA policies, where all rewards are flexible, obviously they didn’t. So in the case of oneworld flights (other than IB), it is worth transferring Avios over to BAEC and book through them. The fees are going to be the same and your ticket becomes flexible.

Any idea how long it takes to process the refund? Will the Avios be depositied back immediately if its a flex economy ticket that is being cancelled?

Thanks

I just refunded two Iberia T class tickets. The tickets were fully refundable. I will let you know when I see my money.

My avios and my credit card refund showed up four days after I cancelled my tickets.

In the past I remember having to chase the refund of the points a couple of times, but it was before they switched to Avios.
Hopefully it works better now.

thanks, such a nice summary, certainly impossible to find on the IB site. should be in a sticky here.

looks like that no-refund oneworld policy is going to bite hard on some friends of mine, unfortunately.

I currently have JFK-MAD-JFK booked using Iberia Avios. I would like to cancel the MAD-JFK portion. Would Iberia refund the taxes + Avios for the MAD-JFK portion of the flight only?

I called Iberia and the agent said I can either cancel the whole thing and get Avios back. To cancel just the MAD-JFK portion I would get the taxes back but no Avios. He had to look things up and didn't sound very confident.

Any other ways to get this done? Can I change my MAD-JFK to MAD-BCN or something small to get a majority of the Avios back? Any other tips?

Thanks,

I don't see why you couldn't get your avios back. Can't say I've tried something like that, though. Any availability to just book a new ticket and cancel the whole thing?

reward ticket cancel/change fees
 

nope, no other flights were available. Just got to MAD.. will try to call again today once the US offices open.

Would be great to hear If anyone's successfully been able to get Iberia avois back after starting the journey. Thanks

reward ticket cancel/change fees
 

I found an itinerary, MAD-AMS-LON-NYC but Iberia wouldn't let me book that either. They said I can only change the date or cancel the whole ticket. Origin, destination and route all have to be the same. Very frustrating!

That's the rule on partner redemptions (at least it was not sure if it changed with everything else). It should be fine to cancel a segment on only IB metal.

Having had a look at several sections of the web and the T&C, I see (my bolding):

"Refund: Permitted 24 hours before departure the first flight of the ticket with a penalty of 25€. If ticket not contains flights IB5XXX"

"Tickets that contain a leg with a oneworld Company and/or bilateral agreements do not allow changes or refunds. If the legs are through Iberia, Iberia Express or Iberia Regional/Air Nostrum, in principle the change of route will always be admitted as long as no flight coupon has been used (a leg of the ticket)"

Apart from the dreadful English, it does seem that once the outbound is flown, you are only able to change the date of the inbound sector.

I am surprised because I thought this had changed when one-ways became available for Iberia redemptions. IIRC it wasn’t the case several years ago.

In fact, when you redeem Avios, sectors appear one by one on the statement. Perhaps some parts of the old terms were just left unchanged and they never bothered to update them.