Some links to products and partners on this website will earn an affiliate commission.
1 December has now arrived, and that means that the deadline has passed for spending the bonus Avios earned in June’s crazy Iberia Plus promotion. InsideFlyer UK has covered the promotion extensively so I suspect that you are well aware…
Like many others, I have been extremely curious to see what Iberia Plus would do with those members who decided to transfer their Avios to British Airways Executive Club instead of spending them via Iberia Plus. The rules were pretty clear about this, as I’ve written about previously.
And so it has proved. Data points are starting to trickle out on Flyertalk and one member posted a screenshot of the movements in his Iberia Plus account.
As I expected, his account balance is now -90,000 Avios, since he didn’t spend his Avios according to the rules of Iberia Plus.
Of course, the real question is whether Iberia Plus will be able to chase those 90,000 Avios from British Airways Executive Club. I have several bowls of popcorn waiting, expecting to enjoy any carnage that ensues.
What about you? Many InsideFlyer readers have indicated that they passed on the promo. But did you participate and transfer your Avios over to British Airways? What is happening to your account(s) this weekend?
I used most of them. Transferred around 5k across.
Will see how this pans out!
Of course they won’t be able to chase Avios transferred to BAEC because the tech simply does not exist within the Avios system to differentiate between Avois of varying origin (unlike for example Heathrow Rewards Points which definitely does – grrr). So this business of setting customer’s Ibreia Plus accounts to -90k is the end of the line for this story, but for the possibility that they relent in a year or two and reset these accounts to zero, realizing that they’ll get no more ticket sales from these accounts until they do. It’s like they are stomping they little angry feet having offered a promotion so poorly thought through that it could so easily be gamed within the rules – the rules as the are actually implemented in reality. Meanwhile the crews on the Vigo-Madrid route are still wondering at their light workloads through September/October with high anticipated load factors yet a high proportion of no-shows. All Iberia achieved was to (a) give away money (or money proxy), (b) lock many of the recipients of that gift out of their business for years to come and (c) make travel more expensive for the residents of Vigo who actually needed to travel to Madrid. Stupidity all round !!!