whataidiot

I recently opened an IB account (2 weeks ago) and would like to take advantage of the current AMEX MR transfer bonus. After I transfer my MR to IB, will I be able to then transfer the IB+ to BA after 90 days? Am I understanding this correctly?

craigthemif

I believe that other people have mentioned on FT that IB+ does not consider MR to be sufficient to "activate" an account. You should try to credit a flight, hotel stay, car rental, etc. within those 90 days.

However I am quite sure that you won't be able to move Avios to BA until those 90 days have passed.

whataidiot

I was under the impression an Amex MR transfer is enough to activate the account. Has anyone done this successfully?

UA Fan

I did it sometime back and it worked.

whataidiot

Ok, thank you both. I'll transfer the MR and hope for the best.

HLCinCOU

I've now seen several conversations on this subject and I'm unclear on the mechanism. Is this really a difference between the airlines? Or is it simply the fact that the IB flights don't go through London, which incurs hefty taxes?

HLCinCOU

One other question: do I understand correctly that once you have activated both accounts at least once, you can simply transfer avios back and forth to keep both accounts active forever? If so, how often do you have to do that?

HLCinCOU

Yes, IB's award chart is very favorable for some things, notably awards from ORD. Also some say the fuel surcharges and taxes are better (but see the question I just asked in this same thread).

BA6501

IB has much lower YQ than BA - and BA applies their own YQ on all transatlantic routes except for EI and AB.

hedgehopper

I have an e-rewards account (joined via Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.) I am winding down VS collecting and it is giving me the option to redeem to many other partners including Iberia Plus. My Iberia Plus acct been open c. 12 months but never managed/bothered to credit anything to it to activate it. I'd happily transfer 8k e-rewards to my Iberia acct for 3k avios...can anyone confirm that this will a) work, b) activate the acct so all can be extracted to avios.com?

Cheers,
HH

ziggattack

Sorry for bumping the thread, I just want to mention my experience in activating my Iberia account in hopes it might be helpful for someone else.

It turns out I waited the 90 days, bought something in the IberiaPlus store but the points take a while to post (still waiting for them to post) so I looked into straight up buying points. I read a few posts where people state that you need to have some activity to buy points but this was not my case, the T&C explicitly say the account needs to have 90 days OR have a balance of more than 0 points to buy avios (Obviously I did not test whether I could buy before the 90 days). I did a quick test combining from BAEC before buying and it errored out, bought 2k avios on Iberia, then combined my BAEC points and it worked. If it matters, I did the transfer from the Iberia website. Hopefully this is helpful to someone else.

neuromancer

Yes, e-rewards activate the account. Basically anything except Combine My Avios activates the account. If you do the transfer until Sunday evening, the Avios post at Tuesday morning, except in rare cases when you need to wait indeterminate time for them to fix the glitch.

Sisyphus1carus

Hope everyone's having a good day.
I have a BAEC household account (Mine is the primary + 2 others), can I transfer only the Avios in my specific BAEC account into my Iberia account or can I transfer all from the household account ??

The other BAEC account holders don't have Iberia accounts yet and as such couldn't transfer anytime soon into a new one they create.

craigthemif

I believe you cannot directly combine ANY Avios if you have a HHA. There are workarounds, but definitely none that allow you to take all of your friends and family's Avios and combine them into one IB+ account.

Sisyphus1carus

NUTS !


Aslong as I could move my own over that would be Okay.
Need to investigate further as to whether I can move mine over & how (if there needs to be a trick).