You can earn 90,000 Avios for under $300. Iberia is giving out 9,000 Avios per trip for up to 10 trips. That’s amazing considering there’s no minimum fare involved. I held off writing about this because I figured:

• It would only be useful if you were already in Europe
  
• It would never be honored

It turns out that Iberia is honoring this deal and in practice you won’t actually need to take the flights.

• 9000 points per ticket booked, up to 10 tickets
  
• Book by June 24 (Sunday, but Madrid time is GMT+2 or 6 hours ahead of the US East Coast)
  
• One way tickets should work, the terms do not say roundtrips are required
  
• Points are awarded within 10 days of purchase, not after you travel.
  
• You have to redeem the points by December 1 or they’ll be taken back from your account. But that’s a good thing. You know you can use the points before taking the trip if your tickets are for December onward.
  
• In fact if there’s a schedule change to your 2019 travel you may even be able to cancel and get a refund for the tickets. The rules say if you refund tickets the points are removed, but if you’ve already spent the points that means you have a negative balance. And if award travel is already complete…
  
• No registration is required for this promotion, just ensure your Iberia frequent flyer number is in the reservation when you book.

Here’s how it works, according to Iberia:

Special offer of an extra 9,000 Avios for each ticket purchased between 21 and 24 June 2018 (maximum of 90,000 promotional Avios per member) on iberia.com for a flight operated by Iberia, Iberia Express or Air Nostrum. The Avios will be added within 10 days of the purchase to the Iberia Plus account of all customers identified as members of the Iberia Plus programme during the purchase process.

If the customer requests a refund, either because it is permitted by the fare or for any other reason, the promotional Avios will be withdrawn from their account. The extra promotional Avios not redeemed by 1 December 2018 will be withdrawn from the customer’s account. The redemption terms and conditions are subject to the general terms and conditions of the Iberia Plus programme.

For example, if a customer purchases tickets on Iberia.com for three people to fly from Seville to Madrid and two of the people are identified as Iberia Plus members during the purchase process, 9,000 Avios will be credited to both of these people within 10 days of the purchase. These two people must have redeemed at least 9,000 Avios by 1 December 2018, or this same amount of Avios will be withdrawn from their account.

You may not be able to transfer these points from Iberia to British Airways without restriction. But Iberia even confirms you don’t have to fly!

Our Iberia Plus cardholders will be able to keep the promotional Avios, if they don’t fly the purchased segments. And you can only redeem the Avios awarded through this promotion through the Iberia Plus programme. If the customers transfer these Avios to their BA Executive Club account, they will have a negative balance in the Iberia Plus programme, as those Avios wouldn’t have been spent by the date mentioned above.

One Mile at a Time booked 10 Malaga – Madrid one way tickets for $29 each, that means $290 for 90,000 Avios. You can book Madrid – Seville or Santander for $34. As a result of this offer though cheap tickets are selling out fast.

There are real sweet spots in the Iberia program.

• Low fuel surcharges redeeming on Iberia flights. If you use British Airways Avios for Chicago – Madrid roundtrip you’ll pay $956 in fuel surcharges. Using Iberia points instead it’s under $150.

• Cheaper awards. Boston and New York – Madrid costs just 34,000 points each way in business class outside peak season using Iberia. Miami costs just a bit more. You save miles and money booking through Iberia.

Iberia Business Class

Here are the Iberia metal off-peak and peak award chart prices:

I’ve had great success using Iberia Avios to redeem business class travel on Royal Air Maroc for 94,500 miles roundtrip.

I find their American Airlines redemption chart useful as well. Here’s the pricing:

This is the deal of the year. Act quickly. And top off your Iberia account with transfers from American Express Membership Rewards of Chase Ultimate Rewards.

More importantly this deal scales. Have a family of 7 or lots of friends? You could earn 630,000 points for ~ $2000.

In any deal like this there’s risk – the biggest, I think, is that things don’t happen automatically and Iberia’s customer service just isn’t very good. However this is certainly an exciting offer.

(HT: Frequent Miler)