Travel to Spain which Miles or Program to use?
 

Hi Everyone,

I have used these forums for research and deal shopping. But now I am planning a 2 week trip to Spain. We want to fly into Bilbao Airport if possible. We are in California and I need to find the best way to use miles without those super high fuel taxes.

I am not sure if this is the right place, but I do have miles with BA and also set up an account with Iberia. I have been told that I should try to fly somewhere to avoid the fuel taxes like Ireland or Iceland. I am not sure if that would work. I also have miles on Southwest miles so I could hop from Southwest to another airport because I really do not want to do the flights in one long flight, but to break it up a little bit.

Background - I have about 85k miles with BA, 80k more with AMEX, 250,000 or so with Chase Rewards, and already have the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass.

Thanks for any help you can give!

I should add that I am planning for 4 people, economy is fine but I would love better if doable with miles. Also, I hold the Sapphire card, Bold, AMEX, and Southwest Visas.

My main goal is to see how to break up the flights, maybe have a stopover but avoid those huge fuel charges by BA.

BA does not charge these egregious fees for redemptions on airberlin and Aer Lingus. So search for award availability on these two airlines.

Transferring avios to Iberia and booking those awards via them is also a good move. Iberia does charge "fuel" surcharges, but they are not outrageously expensive (expect something like $50 for a TATL).
However,you need to plan ahead, as there are some restrictions on transferring Avios between BAEC and IB+ accounts - the IB+ account must have been open three months and it must be active, that means it cannot be empty before you can move avios over from BA. Transferring Amex points into it prior to moving your BA avios over will satisfy that requirement.

As far as breaking up the flight goes - you will have to anyway (depending on your home airport). Airberlin and Iberia only serves a few cities in the US (LAX, ORD, JFK, MIA, plus some seasonal services in the summer, e.g.BOS). But you should be able to tack on an AA feeder flight to your award for no additional avios (if distance band remains the same).

Also, Bilbao has no direct transatlantic service, so you will have to connect in Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin or Düsseldorf as well.

Travel to Spain which Miles or Program to use?
 

Only certain programs allow stopovers for free.
on a trip from the US to Bilbao, the possibilities are fairly endless, since no carrier flies the route nonstop, and one stops (after your TATL gateway) are available on Star Alliance (SN via BRU, TP via LIS, EW/LH via DUS, LX via ZRH, and TK via IST), Skyteam (UX via MAD, AF via CDG, AZ via FCO, and OK via PRG), and Oneworld/IAG (EI via DUB, BA via LHR. IB via MAD).

The best miles to use will depend on which routing has 4 tickets available. United could be a good use of Chase points in this case. The Star Alliance options are also more likely to have flights direct from LAX or SFO to Europe.

Thanks for the information. What does TATL mean?

I can fly out of LAX. I was playing around with LAX to BOS to MAD or Ireland if that helps reduce fuel charges. I will hook up my AMEX to Iberia link today if possible. I have left that account just sitting there (Iberia) for about a year. So the 3 months isn't a problem. My goal is to wait until AMEX offers another incentive to transfer to BA and drop more points there then feed into Iberia or other options.

I have heard it can be real hard to string these flights together. Would you book it by leg via round trips, or just all on AirLingus or Airberlin. I do not know either airline, so wasn't sure.

TATL = Transatlantic
Fuel surcharges aren't an issue if you use Chase rewards via United.
Airberlin is not a particularly good option in this case as it does not fly from Germany to Bilbao, meaning you'd have to make at least two stops in Europe.
Assuming there are 4 seats available on LAX-MAD, there should be no problem "stringing it together." Aer Lingus does not fly out of LAX, though, so you'd also have to have award availability on an AA domestic flight, which can be difficult. Overall though, there is nothing complicated about this route.

Ok great. I just transferred 1000 AMEX points into each British Airways and Iberia Plus accounts. Now I have 80k in BA and 1000 in Iberia. I did this to make sure those accounts are valid and open them up to future transfers.

As for flying, I can take Southwest to someplace on a separate flight since I have points and the companion pass already, keeping that leg cheap depending on which city is best. Any suggestions there? Also, now that I have transferred from AMEX to Iberia Plus, you are saying that will enable me to transfer direct from BA?

If an AMEX transfer bonus to BA comes up again, I will transfer them all to BA, that is why I wanted to ask. You have been very helpful, sorry for all the questions but not accustomed to using this for overseas travel.

BA has ultra high fuel taxes.

IB has fuel taxes, but much lower than BA.

Your most convenient trip is Iberia LAX-MAD and onward to Bilbao.

As you don't want that, use AA to fly to MIA or other airport on the east coast to connect with AA, IB, whatever. Use Aer Lingus with BA Avios. Etc.

You may need to travel two and two on separate itineraries; your chances of finding two award seats are ever so greater than finding four on the same flights..

Don't worry about going via Dublin etc. unless you need to for seat availability - you won't save airline imposed fuel taxes that way. You only pay United Kingdom Air Passenger Duty if you originate a flight in the U.K., unless you're connecting there under 24:00.

Travel to Spain which Miles or Program to use?
 

you need to find seats with transatlantic availability on the dates you want. don't start thinking about what domestic cities you're going to be connecting in; that's backwards.

Remember: each leg you redeem Avios for costs additional miles, unlike most programs. So LAX-MAD - BIO is going to cost fewer miles than LAX-SFO-DUB-BIO, even if there are higher fuel surcharges.

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"Don't worry about going via Dublin etc. unless you need to for seat availability - you won't save airline imposed fuel taxes that way."



Au contraire!



BAEC redemptions on EI TATL flights have minuscule surcharges. (The surcharge on the EI intra-European flight is likely to be higher than the surcharge on the EI TATL flight.)



"My goal is to wait until AMEX offers another incentive to transfer to BA and drop more points there then feed into Iberia or other options."



That might be a mistake. The MR => BA Avios conversion ratio is changing (and not in a good way) at the end of this month. You would need a post-September 30 conversion bonus of 25% just to equal what you could get if you convert now. (Of course, if there should be a transfer bonus of 40% or 50%, you would do better than if you transferred now without a bonus.)

Hi everyone, I am back. I really appreciate the help but am starting to feel like I can't find that fit. I can get award flights from Iberia to Bilboa for 4 people with one stop in MAD for $1013 and 240,000 Avios. The problem is do not think my wife and kids can handle (or me for that matter) that long of a flight. It is one flight of 11 hours there, and 13 hours back respectively.

However, whenever I try to break up the flight, I can't find a good combination that doesn't cost a ton of points. I have tried booking American airlines bia British airways and that was crazy, I tried BA again but they want like $3000 plus more Avios.

I guess we could just suck it up but I was hopeful I could fly to the east cost, stay somewhere smart (don't really care) for a couple of days to sight see, then pop over to Bilboa from there.

Any ideas or is this simply I am wanting too much with what I have in points? I know there are tools out there but I am not too sure on Expert flyer, etc.

Ideally, I would like to fly and show my kids DC or Boston, or anywhere then pop over to spain on a shorter flight. Same on the way back. Any ideas that I am missing are super welcome!

Oh I also checked out United and I can't pull that off with the miles I have. The most I can get over there is about 210k if I transfer all my Chase there.

I also have tried booking AA via BA but that was hugely expensive. Charges on BA in general omg. Also, I am trying to pull up MIA stuff right now.

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See if you can find Coach award seats on AA nonstops from LAX to DCA, PHL, or BOS. Only 12,500 BA Avios one-way. Then look for JFK/BOS-MAD-BIO-MAD-U.S.A. on IB metal using IB Avios (not BA Avios). ;)

Getting from one East Coast city to another need not cost a fortune: there's Megabus, Bolt Bus, and one-way car rentals.

Will give that at try. IB seems to be same points if I am going from LA or Boston. Doesn't seem to matter. I tried looking up flights on AA that would then show up on BA but not having much luck :(. I check the dates, times, make sure they are award flights but not seeing them on BA.

What is IB Metal? (I have linked by BA account to Iberia to share miles so have 80k in BA, 100k in Amex that I can transfer direct, and the remaining in Chase Rewards which I can do as well.)

Love the quick response and advise in here! I just need to be sure before I move all these points and can't bring them back type of thing :).

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"IB metal" is a plane operated by IB. If you redeem IB Avios for a JFK-MAD flight, you pay lower surcharges if you redeem those Avios for the JFK-MAD flight on IB metal than if you redeem those Avios for the JFK-MAD flight on AA metal.

You should be able to redeem BA Avios for any AA "SAAver" award flight you find on aa.com; "AAnytime" award flights displayed on aa.com cannot be booked with Avios.

An IB aircraft (that flys the route).

Gotcha, thanks for that insight. I have been playing around with the Boston to San Sebastian route (that is better for family getting us) and that looks promising. However, just noticed that AMEX transfer rate went down as someone noted earlier.

Do you know (before I execute transfer) if there is a major delay in transferring AMEX to Iberia (already done 1k a while back), and from BA to Iberia (already have point sharing thing activated). Lastly, I would need to go Chase --> BA-->Iberia for remaining points. I assume if I have point sharing on, it should be pretty quick.

It will literally take all my points. I am looking on AA for flights to Boston among other places. Great idea - thank you.

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For your domestic flight(s) within the U.S., it might make sense to use your Southwest points on Southwest, rather than BA Avios on AA, especially since you have the Southwest companion pass.

If you are going to have to transfer some BA Avios to Iberia Plus anyway, I would just send the Amex MR points to BAEC: those transfers are usually pretty speedy; not sure about the speed of MR => Iberia Plus. Don't know whether there will be another MR => BAEC transfer bonus anytime soon.

Some people on the FT BA forum have complained of problems transferring Avios from BAEC to Iberia Plus. I would check to see if those transfer problems have been resolved before going much further. ;)

I think I will see how long it takes for 1k in miles from Chase to BA to Iberia :). Man I need more miles lol.

I can do Southwest to Boston for 70k in miles, 8 hours travel time. Then Boston to MAD to San Sebastian and back to Boston for 340,000 plus $920 for coach one way between MAD and BOS and the way back in Business Class for all 4.

We can break up flight and check out Boston I guess. Cannot find Business Class options on flights from LAX to MAD at all.

This is a question for the BA & IB forums. IIRC they have threads on this topic
My limited understanding (which may be incorrect)
- is transfer is BAEC to avois.com to IBPlus
- you need some avios in IB ffp to start with (correct?)
- there are limitations on signing up for http://www.avios.com

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U.S. residents are ineligible for an avios.com account. If a direct transfer from BAEC to Iberia Plus is no longer possible, then the OP is in trouble. Although Amex MR points can transfer directly to Iberia Plus, Chase UR points cannot.

I actually was testing things today. I am not sure what BAEC means btw. However, I made sure to try my best setting up transfer pathways months ago. Today I tested a few. 1) AMEX to BA - no problem. 2) AMEX to IB - no problem but delayed.

However, if I transfer from AMEX to BA - almost immediate and then from BA to Iberia immediate :). I transferred 200 Avios from AMEX to both IB and BA easily.

3) Chase to BA - within an hour or so it showed up in my BA account.

Bottomline - I hope I am ok on this but I can transfer all my Chase to BA and then to IB. All AMEX to IB direct or via BA which is actually faster then to IB.

Sorry, very confusing but it all showed up with the only delay being AMEX to IB direct. So once I know for sure what I am doing, will drop most points into BA for pending transfer to Iberia.

I probably could of said that better and I hope I am not missing things. Months ago, I made sure to transfer AMEX to Iberia to show activity after having the Iberia account for 3 months. Now that opened up Iberia to direct transfers from BA. Argh but its working lol.

Any secret to squeezing or finding business class from LA to MAD?

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BAEC = "British Airways Executive Club," the name of BA's frequent-flyer program.

IB operates LAX-MAD only certain days of the week. There is no secret to finding award seats in Business (or any other) Class: they are either there or they are not. However, there are some paid services (Expert Flyer, Award Nexus) that let you set an alert for award seats. If you are willing to use one of those, that may give you an edge.

How soon is the trip, and how soon do you plan to book? Are you going to wait to see if Amex offers a new transfer bonus to BAEC?

Flying family of four in July 2016. I want to be back in states by July 24th in Calif. I am going through each day to see if I can find a flight with Business Class on one leg either to or from Madrid since I have younger kiddos.

If I cut out Boston, I definitely want to see if I can get at least one business class to help them deal with long flight.

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Finding four Business Class award seats on the same TATL flight for travel in July will prove quite challenging.

I can do it out of Boston but not sure I want to fly Southwest to Boston unless we can really enjoy it for a few days. Then Business class to Spain, then from Spain to LAX.

There are Business Class seats on the LAX flights but they are just not coming up for awards. Perhaps they may release them later but not sure if I can switch them over if I book coach. Gah long flight for upright with kids :).

guv1976 - I would love to get the better transfer but if I am traveling in July with a family of four, I figure I better book now versus waiting too long and seeing if AMEX offers better transfer points.

I would love to have more options but points are limiting me. Just talked with Iberia and, while they business class from LAX to MAD, they aren't available for rewards at this time. I guess that is a popular flight being direct.

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You have to decide which is more important to you: getting Business Class on the outbound, or seeing Washington/Boston. If your first priority is getting Business Class, then check award availability to Madrid from all of IB's North American gateways (which you can find by Googling "MAD airport wiki").

Or call BAEC and check Business Class award availability from LAX/BOS/JFK/IAD/ORD/MCO/SFO on EI to DUB, with either an award or a cash Coach flight from DUB to MAD. (You could even spend a day or two touring DUB.) You would have to use BA Avios -- not IB Avios -- for redemptions on EI, but BAEC assesses very low surcharges for TATL award travel on EI.

As the OP is seeking to use miles/points across several platforms, we're relocating this to TravelBuzz.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk

Just as a thank you update. I am booked to a wonderful trip from LAX to Madrid and even fit in a side trip to Rome. I had tons of help on this forum and ended up with the LAX to Madrid direct flight in coach.

Family of 4 was about $1000 total using Avios points. I managed to get that round trip for 240,000 Avios. Actually, I am flying from Madrid to Bilboa which is included in that round trip. Then I was able to squeeze 60,000 avios to fly direct to Rome for 4 days, cost about $200 in taxes only.

I wish I could of gotten business class but no luck there. But I am thrilled to have such a wonderful trip planned for 4 people that cost about $1300 total and 300,000 Avios. I hope that is considered a good deal as I looked everywhere.

Thanks again for all the help. Now I just need a awesome Rome hotel for 4 nights.. any ideas? I have also selected seats. row 5 JL, row 6 JL on way there. But can't find a good seating of the A342 model - frustrating!