Sweet Spot: Book Iberia Business Class With Little Miles & Surcharges

Iberia Business Class

Iberia‘s business class is definitely not the most hyped product on the market, that’s for sure. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a great product. It can actually make sense booking an award business class flight with Iberia as in some cases it can be pretty cheap in comparison. After reading this article you will for sure agree.

Iberia Destinations

Iberia has 22 long-haul destinations:

Iberia fliegt zu insgesamt 21 Langstreckenzielen weltweit:

North- & Central-America

  • New York
  • Boston
  • Miami
  • Chicago
  • San Francisco
  • Los Angeles
  • Mexico City
  • Panama City
  • San Jose, Costa Rica
  • Havana, Cuba

South America

  • Sao Paulo
  • Rio de Janeiro
  • Quito
  • Bogora
  • Medellin
  • Buenos Aires
  • Montevideo
  • Lima
  • Guayaquil
  • Santiago de Chile

Asia

  • Shanghai
  • Tokyo

Direkt bei Iberia Plus werden je nach Haupt- oder Nebenreisezeitraum folgen Avios für einen Prämienflug fällig:

Zone
Miles
Avios
Peak/Off-Peak
Destinations
5
3.001-4.000
34.000
50.000
New York, Chicago,
Boston
6
4.001-5.500
42.500
62.500
Sao Paulo, Rio, Quito, Bogora, Medellin,
Panama, San Jose, Havana, Miami, Los Angeles
7
5.501-6.500
51.000
75.000
Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Lima, Guayaquil,
Mexico City, San Francisco
8
6.501-7.000
59.500
87.500
Santiago de Chile, Shanghai,
Tokyo
9
über 7.000
85.000
125.000
Warning

The zone classification in regards to distance miles is very arbitrary. Chicago should be in zone 6, it is in zone 5. Shanghai should be in zone 7 but it is in zone 8. Los Angeles is in zone 6 but San Francisco is on zone 7. There are many more examples.

Of course you can also book these flights with Oneworld frequent flyer programs other than Iberia Plus. Redemption rates and surcharges will differ a lot.

Here are two (resp. four) examples:

New York, Boston & Chicago

You can find good availability between Madrid and New York (& Boston + Chicago) with Iberia Plus and Executive Club. However with AAdvantage and Asia Miles it was not possible to find availabilites in business class.

IBERIA C nach NYC mit Iberia Plus Oneway
Business Class from Madrid to New York for 34,000 Avios + €108

As you can see, booking with Iberia Plus is definitely the best option to book flights to New York & Boston with as little as possible miles and surcharges. Miles redemption is especially great in Iberia Plus’ and Executive club’s off-peak season. If you book a roundtrip, surcharges become even less (€92 per way). You could definitely call this a sweet spot of the Iberia Plus program if you will. New York, Boston & Chicago are the only destinations that Iberia flies to in zone 5 of their award chart.

It’s also good to know that you can transfer Avios from Executive Club and AerClub to Iberia Plus at a ratio of 1:1. So if you have a lot of Executive Club Avios and want to fly to New York, you can save a lot of money on surcharges by transferring to Iberia Plus and booking through there.

You can also always buy Avios via Iberia Plus. Usually 10,000 Avios will cost you €201. However from time to time Groupon Spain offers an Iberia Plus Avios purchase at a better rate. Keep an eye out for it.

Last but not least you can transfer American Express Membership Rewards to Iberia Plus and Executive Club. The transfer ratio depends on where you are based respectively in which country you have the American Express card. In Germany for example the ratio is 5:4.

Tokyo

If you think that Iberia Plus is always the best choice when flying Iberia business class, you are wrong. On route from Madrid to Tokyo Asia Miles is surprisingly the best option. Availabilities are also much better:

  • Asia Miles: 70,000 miles + €26,57
  • AAdvantage: 75,000 miles + $104,60
  • Iberia Plus: 87,500 miles + €95,62
  • Executive Club: 87,500 miles + €212,62
IBERIA C nach Tokyo mit Asia Miles
The best option to fly from Madrid to Tokyo with Iberia’s business class

Another advantage with Asia Miles is that you can actually transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Asia Miles. Again, the transfer ratio depends on where your American Express card is issued. In Germany a ratio of 5:4 applies.

Search & Book

You can find possible dates and availabilities through Iberia Plus or Asia Miles:

There’s a Google Chrome extension that works pretty well to find availabilities in different programs. It’s called Award.flights. Another tool that is great to find out which frequent flyer program may be the cheapest/best for your desired route, is Award Hacker. The tool isn’t fully up-to-date and therefore sometimes not 100% reliable but it can give you a great indication of what program may be the best.

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