My ever-changing honeymoon plans now have me flying Iberia from JFK to MAD and then on to VCE. Anyone have any experience with Iberia business class? Also, does anyone know if it is possible to upgrade a reward ticket from business to first, either thru a coupon or the generosity of a gate agent? All positive and negative comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

I'm guessing you're the guy that was going on Swiss through Zurich before? Anyway, I just flew Iberia business from Santiago, Chile to Madrid and on to GVA today. Their business class is very nice but nothing remarkable. From what I can tell, the food and drink service in First are the same as Business....they start with the same food cart up there and simply work their way back to Business. The First seats appear to lie flat while the Business ones only recline and have foot rests....not all that great. The Iberia crews that I've had seem to be professional, but tend to be older and not overly friendly. I would guess you're using Swiss miles to get this flight. Don't know if they will be able to take them to upgrade....I've had spotty results even getting Iberia personnel to know that they are in the same program as Swiss...even here in Geneva, the agent didn't want to enter my Qualiflyer number for the flight. Today the flight from MAD to GVA was code shared with Swiss which has code LX...when we landed the agent thanked us for flying with "Lux-Air" flight and said to check with "Lux-Air" personnel in the GVA airport for further connections. I heard a passenger correcting the agent on my way off the plane. Bottom line...don't expect to be able to upgrade to first on Iberia...they probably won't even know what your Qualiflyer card is!

BruiserB:

Thanks, actually I'm using AA miles (OneWorld). I appreciate your thoughts.

JHO

Haven't flown JFK-MAD on IB for quite some time but I seem to remember that most of the ground service personnel are AA staff. Although it is not possible to upgrade an Advantage award ticket, it would be helpful to ensure that your FF details are contained in the reservation. It is possible that your elite FF status *may* allow for an upgrade in the event that the flight is heavily oversold. But I would not hold my breath.