5 Best Ways to Use Iberia Avios

Want to enjoy a weekend sipping sangria in Barcelona, Spain, exploring the endemic species of the Galapagos Islands or enjoying the luxurious treatment of a first-class trip across the world? Who doesn’t?

While points and miles offer a wide variety of ways to make your travel dreams come true, you’ll want to get familiar with the Iberia Avios program if any of these trips appeal to your inner travel bug. With plenty of ways to earn Avios and 19 airline partners eligible for redemptions, Iberia Avios can take you virtually anywhere you want to go.

Whether you’re already sitting on an Avios stockpile or want to build one, let’s explore the best ways to use Iberia Avios.

About Iberia

Iberia is a Spanish airline based in Madrid. It’s a member of the Oneworld alliance, which means you can use Iberia Avios to book flights on Iberia along with any of the 14 other members of the Oneworld alliance, such as American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Alaska Airlines and Qatar Airways. In addition, Iberia has agreements with five other partners, allowing for redemptions on a total of 19 airlines.

Avios is the shared award currency of Iberia and several other airlines, including Aer Lingus, British Airways, Qatar Airways and Vueling. This unique common reward currency allows you to transfer Avios between airlines seamlessly.

Although Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia and Qatar Airways use the same reward currency, their redemption charts are different. Before you book a flight using Avios, check each of the airline’s redemption charts to determine whether transferring Avios between airlines would increase their value for your specific travel plans.

Because it’s based in Madrid, Iberia has many routes in and out of Spain. It’s a great way to travel from the Americas to Europe or make quick jaunts across either continent.

We’ll explore the five best uses of Iberia’s Avios, but first, let’s cover some basics of the Iberia Avios program.

Earning Iberia Avios

Avios is one of the easiest airline currencies to accumulate. Between co-branded cards, transfer partners and the transferability of Avios from other airlines, getting your paws onto Iberia Avios is a piece of cake.

The Iberia Visa Signature® Card Credit Card

The easiest way to earn Iberia Avios is to apply for the Iberia Visa Signature® Card from Chase. You’ll earn 3X points on all direct purchases with British Airways, Aer Lingus or Iberia. You’ll also earn 2X points on hotel accommodations and 1X point on everything else.

The Iberia Visa Signature® Card has limited benefits, so we wouldn’t recommend it for the first slot in your wallet. However, Chase generally offers a substantial welcome bonus upon completion of a modest spending requirement. This can be a great way to jump-start your Avios-earning.

Just remember, because the Iberia Visa Signature® Card is offered by Chase, you’ll have to be under 5/24 to get approved.

Transferring Flexible Point Currencies to Avios

If you can’t get the  , you can transfer American Express Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards to your Iberia Avios account at a 1:1 ratio.

Simply go to the “redeem points” section of a bank website and select “transfer points.” You must transfer points in increments of 1,000 with either program. American Express states transfers take up to three business days, but sometimes they happen faster. Chase Ultimate Rewards transfers should be instantaneous. It’s best to give yourself three business days for your transfer just to be safe.

These transfer partners sometimes offer bonuses on transfers. These bonuses are a great way to make your hard-earned rewards go further.

Remember to never transfer points speculatively to protect yourself from unannounced devaluations.

Transferring Points from Other Avios Programs

Since Iberia, Aer Lingus, British Airways and Qatar Airways all use the Avios as their reward currency, you can transfer Avios from one account to another.

Transfers between Avios accounts are instantaneous if you transfer on Avios.com. While Avios points are valuable, they aren’t as flexible as Chase Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards.

If you’re planning on making an Iberia Avios redemption and have both transferable points and Avios from British Airways or Aer Lingus, consider transferring your existing Avios points from other airlines before dipping into your stockpile of transferable points.

Now that you know how to earn Avios. Let’s look at how to redeem them.

Best Ways to Redeem Iberia Avios

Iberia has a redemption chart for each partner. Luckily, they are all similar.

All award charts use the total distance of each segment to determine its price. For instance, a flight from Chicago (ORD) to Atlanta (ATL) is 710 miles. A direct flight would fall within the 651-1,151 miles category.

However, if you have a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina (CLT), an American Airlines hub, then you’ll technically have two flights, aka segments—a 599-mile flight from Chicago to Charlotte and then a 277-mile hop from Charlotte to Atlanta. Each segment will be priced out in the 0-650 miles distance and combined for the total redemption cost. This per-segment pricing can make an otherwise awesome redemption just OK if you can’t find a direct flight.

Most partner award charts are split into “peak” and “off-peak” pricing. Iberia publishes a calendar that lists all travel days they consider peak travel. If you’re traveling during summer or within the week of a major holiday, you can bet you’re traveling during peak travel times.

Iberia also publishes a handy calculator you can use to estimate the cost between any two airports.

The Oneworld alliance has 14 members. You can book flights on the following airlines using Iberia Avios:

In addition, Iberia has five non-alliance partners: Avianca, Binter Canarias, LATAM, Level and Vueling. In total, you can book flights on 19 different airlines using Iberia Avios.

Related: Iberia Plus Avios Program: Everything You Need to Know

Let’s look at some of the best ways to redeem your Iberia Avios.

Finish Your Trip to the Galapagos Islands with LATAM

The Galapagos Islands is a bucket-list visit for any animal enthusiast or naturalist. The unadulterated landscape is home to a list of endemic animals. Unfortunately, the islands are located 700 miles off the coast of Ecuador, which makes them less than accessible for the average traveler.

LATAM is one of the few airlines that operate flights from mainland Ecuador to this remote island. LATAM used to be a Oneworld alliance member, but it left the alliance in 2020. The challenge of using miles to visit the Galapagos Islands increased dramatically after this change.

Luckily, Iberia maintained its relationship with LATAM outside the Oneworld alliance. If you’re already in Ecuador, you can fly to the Galapagos Islands with just 9,000 Avios and $30.71 in taxes and fees for a one-way ticket from Quito, Ecuador (UIO), or Guayaquil, Ecuador (GYE), to Baltra, Galapagos Islands (GPS).

In comparison, using Delta SkyMiles, another LATAM partner, will set you back 12,500 miles.

Direct Flight to Madrid on Iberia

Since Iberia is based in Madrid, it’s not surprising that you can get great rates into this airline’s hub. Direct flights from New York (JFK), Chicago (ORD) or Boston (BOS) to Madrid (MAD) are just 17,000 Avios for off-peak dates and 20,000 Avios for peak dates.

Short Jaunts within Europe

Madrid is a great starting point for exploring Europe if you have a stockpile of Iberia Avios. Iberia’s distance-based award chart means you’ll pay just 4,500 Avios (off-peak) or 5,000 Avios (peak) to fly to any city within 650 miles of your originating airport. Some cities within 650 miles of Madrid include:

• Algiers, Algeria
• Barcelona
• Casablanca, Morocco
• Lisbon, Portugal
• Lyon, France

You’ll be within striking distance of even more of Europe if you fly out of Barcelona. From Barcelona, you’ll be within 650 miles of the following cities:

• Algiers
• Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
• Milan, Italy
• Paris
• Rome
• Stuttgart, Germany
• Tunis, Tunisia
• Venice, Italy
• Zurich

Although London is outside the 650-mile radius, the Madrid-London route has a special rate of 6,500 Avios during off-peak dates (7,500 on peak dates) instead of the 7,500 off-peak / 8,250 peak it would be based on its distance.

Adding a short flight to your next European trip is easy whether you’re interested in exploring the entire continent or just want to spend a quick stopover in a bonus city on the way to your final destination.

Get to Hawaii from the West Coast on American Airlines

You can leverage Iberia’s membership in the Oneworld alliance by booking tickets on American Airlines. While Iberia uses a distance-based award chart, American Airlines employs dynamic pricing. This means that high-demand tickets require more points than low-demand tickets.

Using Iberia’s fixed rate award chart allows you to overcome American Airlines’ dynamic pricing, as long as award flights are available to partners. Additionally, Iberia’s American Airlines partnership chart doesn’t use peak/off-peak pricing. If you’re traveling on American Airlines during peak season, Iberia Avios should be your go-to. Just be sure to book early so award space is still available.

To research American Airlines award space, it’s best to use another Oneworld alliance partner’s site. If an American Airlines ticket is available on a partner’s site, that means it should be bookable through any partner. Not all partner sites are created equal. We suggest using Alaska Airlines’ site since it allows you to search available tickets by airline and has a flexible calendar.

Hawaii is about 2,500 miles off the West Coast of the United States, which falls well within the 2,000-3,000 mile band of Iberia’s partner award chart. A direct flight to Honolulu (HNL) from Los Angeles (LAX) costs just 13,000 Avios in Economy.

Booking the same flight on AA.com will cost you at least 20,000 AAdvantage miles.

Business Class on Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways offers one of the most luxurious business-class products in the sky.

Because it’s a Oneworld partner, you can use your Iberia Avios to book one of these coveted seats. While a Qsuites direct flight from New York (JFK) to Doha, Qatar (DOH), would normally set you back $10,248, you can score these dream seats for 70,000 Avios and $499.25 dollars in fuel surcharges and fees.

Final Thoughts

These are just a few ideas of the amazing trips you can book using your Iberia Avios.

With 20 available airlines for redemptions, Iberia Avios can take you just about anywhere. If you have American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards or Avios from either Aer Lingus, British Airways or Qatar Airways lying around, you can turn them into Iberia Avios and take to the skies.

As always, if you’re stumped on how to redeem your newly acquired Avios, you can use our award booking service team. They’ll do the heavy lifting of planning your next points and miles adventure and help you get the most out of your Iberia Avios.