Did you have a hard time finding 2 J seats LAX - MAD ? I am trying to find 2 in May 2019 and can only find one per flght [non stop]

Sorry, poor wording on my part. It was just 1 seat. Making that work for a one-week trip wasn't too bad at the time I booked.

Try to book MUC-MAD-BOS rt in Q1 2019 for an extended weekend but I only get some seats on BA. :confused:

Is it just me who noticed that IB is charging incorrect fees for one way ex-HKG flights operated by BA? They aren't supposed to charge any fuel surcharges but IB added it anyways.

Resigned to fly IB Metal Biz JFK-MAD in mid-April. First world problems. Found perfect days nested between peak days. Lucky works great for my break at work. 68,000+210. Total is $487 once you work in the 277$ in one ways and the $210 in fees.

Left with 22,200 to see if the non-Iberia flights work out - 2 rt 11k flights from that if it pans out.

Edit: Reading flights JFK-MAD are using the 350, but Iberia says its still the 340. And the rows for the semi-private window L vs J seats are different based on 340 vs 350.

There is only one A350 and it's still not flying anything. JFK will be its first route (after short-haul test flights), but nobody knows what's going to fly on your particular date. Just check the seat map much closer to the day of the flight and in the meantime pick A or L if you want a window.

Doha too
 

Did you pay for it anyways?

So my winnings are a return trip in April to Santiago in business class for 102K (after a slight infusion of avios from the BA mountain) and £130, wrapped around a £650 LATAM business class return to Easter Island. Very happy with that - the trip prices up at around four grand in revenue, and I've long wanted to go. The redemptions to South America are very available and there's some very interesting ones - Lima caught the eye at 86K plus the £130.

The promo flights themselves are mostly being flown as ways of either generating TPs towards my end of year target or connecting up with things I fancied trying like flying Vueling to see if it's as bad as everyone says.

From HK: Booking HKG-PEK in KA F/Y for 46,000 and HKG-TYO in CX J Return for another 46,000.

Purchasing extra 2000 Avios at 54 Euros to cover the extra Avios.

Not a bad deal I would say?

In the grand scheme of things
 

I got the avios in 72k then 18k. I was able to redeem 67.5k for LAX-MAD (J) - LYS December 2018 $136YQ. Will be looking into a US domestic redemption for the remaining ~22k.

NRT-MAD, two weeks sidetrip to Malta on paid ticket, then MAD-ORD all in C for 88k Avios plus $ 200.00. No complaints.

I just snagged 2x off-peak IB MAD-SFO biz tickets in May for 51k each. Slightly more then the MAD-LAX price of 42k but the only date I found with 2 seats available was Feb 27 (grab them quick!)

Quite happy so far.