The Iberia Avios currency is quite similar to British Airways Avios, but has its own set of unique pricing. Some of the best options include flying on its own metal.

Updated June 3, 2025. Reflects updated pricing after an unannounced devaluation. Despite this, the best use of miles is still Iberia business class. However, note that the cheapest economy fares now book into basic, which means no refunds.

For this post, I’m not going to get into the details of the elite status aspect of the program and instead focus on the redemption side of the program.

It’s easy to transfer points to Iberia Avios from banks

Either directly or indirectly, you can transfer your miles into Iberia Avios from all major banks. American Express, Bilt, and Chase all transfer points directly into Iberia’s program. If you have Capital One, you’ll need to transfer your points to British Airways first, then link your accounts and transfer to Iberia. If you have Citi, you’ll first need to transfer into Qatar, which can then be alchemized into Iberia Avios.

The good news is that there are occasional bonus transfer amounts that could provide a temporary boost to the transfer ratio. But of course, unless your travel aligns with those transfer bonuses, you shouldn’t be moving points over speculatively.

What you’ll end up finding is that if you need to boost your balance for a flight, you have plenty of options to quickly do so.

Easily move Avios between sister programs

British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Qatar Airways, and Finnair all use Avios as their rewards currency. Rather than each program accessing the same bank of points, you need to transfer your points from one program to the other. While it’s a little annoying to have to go through this step, thankfully it is fairly straightforward to do it. And you will want to do it because each program might offer different points prices and award availability to its own members.

You’ll want to make sure that the name matches between your accounts and as much other details as possible. If not, there’s a chance the transfer will fail. But once you’re set up, you should be good to go. Just find the “Combine Avios” section of your account after logging in.

Award cancelation fees can be reasonable, but…

If you decide you don’t want to keep your reward flight and wish to cancel it, expect to pay no more than $40 if your account is registered in the US. Otherwise, expect to pay 25€. I wouldn’t hesitate to make edits to my flights with fee structures like this.

But–and this is a big but–only flights on Iberia, Iberia Express, and Air Nostrum are cancelable for a fee. If you’re booking a partner airline with your Iberia Avios, the flights cannot be canceled at all. That’s a big “gotcha” to be aware of. Not even any of their Avios partners like British Airways or Qatar get a pass with the cancel fees. Ouch.

And now you won’t get any refund on their new basic economy award type (more on that below).

Iberia Avios awards are distance-based

Updated June 3, 2025 with new rates

While Iberia doesn’t show an actual award chart on their website, they do price their flights differently based on cabin, distance, which airline you’re flying, and how many airlines are included. The airline also has peak and off-peak pricing depending on when you’re flying.

Chart for flights operated by Iberia

Iberia previously listed “Blue Class” and “Full Economy Class” as award options. The only difference was that “Full Economy Class” had no change or cancel fees.

Sadly, that has changed negatively. Blue is replaced with “Basic”, which is a true basic economy fare with no refunds and no free rollaway bag allowed onboard. Make no mistake, this is a massive devaluation of economy fares. No refunds is absolutely terrible for award flights.

“Comfort” Economy is just standard economy. Perhaps they wanted it to look more attractive than it actually is? Do not confuse this with Premium Economy, which is a different product.

Iberia doesn’t have the premium economy cabin on flights shorter than 3,000 miles, which explains not having award pricing.

Chart for flights operated by LEVEL

LEVEL is Iberia’s low cost carrier. There is no difference in award pricing between LEVEL and Iberia. Rather, the only reason for the smaller table is simply to represent that LEVEL only serves long-haul destinations.

Currently, you’ll find LEVEL between Barcelona and the following international destinations:

• Boston
• Buenos Aires
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• New York JFK
• San Francisco
• Santiago

Partner pricing is ugly and inconsistent

Pricing on partners, which includes all of their Avios partners, is quite painful. However, I saw a lot of inconsistency by route. Take two routes as an example: CMB-MLE and TPE-HKG. Both are around 500 miles in length. However, pricing is significantly different.

• CMB-MLE is 6,000 Avios in economy or 12,500 in business
• TPE-HKG is 9,750 Avios in economy or 20,800 in business

It’s not clear what compels the rate to vary so much. If you think perhaps there is high/low pricing involved, let me introduce you to another option: LHR-CDG, which is about 200 miles in length.

• LHR-CDG is 9,250 Avios in economy or 15,000 in business

That makes me wonder if perhaps you just need to search route by route to get pricing since no award chart is posted.

In any event, the pricing is no cheaper than what Iberia offers for their peak pricing. And then layer on top of this the fact that partner awards are noncancelable and I can’t think of an honest reason we would use Iberia to book partners.

You’re better off transferring your miles to another Avios program and booking with them.

What are the sweet spots?

Flying off-peak long-haul Iberia in business class

This is it. The one sweet spot in the program.

But it is a good one. And it gets even better if you line it up with a transfer bonus from a major bank.

Let’s take a look at some examples. You can find New York JFK to Madrid MAD for only 34,000 Avios 40,500 Avios in business class. Despite the devaluation, this is still an efficient way to get to Europe in lie-flat business class. Isn’t that the name of the game anyways?

Or how about flying Chicago ORD to Madrid for that same price?

You might not think of Los Angeles LAX to Madrid as being quite as good of a deal, but it is for those originating on the west coast.

Iberia’s only current destination in Asia is Tokyo NRT. Pricing is also reasonable on this route but not too spectacular.

Off-peak pricing is truly excellent, so book it if you can find it.

So let’s talk about those fees

We all know British Airways has terrible cash copays to go along with their award pricing. But what about when you use Iberia Avios?

Let’s take a look at that New York to Madrid flight from before. Selecting the flight shows the associated fee.

We know the route costs 40,500 Avios and the cash fees only amount to $135.10. Ultimately your thoughts on this fee likely are heavily skewed based on perspective. If you use a program that doesn’t pass along fuel surcharges (YQ) to customers on award flights, you might only pay $5.60 and this might feel heavy.

But on the flip side, British Airways charges significantly more on their flights between North America and Europe. The fees are in the range of $1,000 for a one-way flight. And by comparison, this might seem like a godsend.

Does this change my thoughts on using Iberia Avios for British Airways flights?

Put simply: no.

And that’s because the fees are low only for Iberia flights. Let’s pull up a British Airways flight to take a look, like New York JFK to London LHR.

And sure enough, the fees are back to the $1,000 range. Did you think you were going to find a loophole to get you out of those British Airways fees?

Infant awards are 10% of the cash price

Back when we flew internationally with an infant, we ended up sometimes paying a pretty penny to allow our child to sit in our lap. Without getting into the debate on the safety of the lap child, I can say it sometimes got expensive.

With most airlines, you would be forced to pay 10% of the cash price of the ticket. Say you found a flight for 75,000 miles in business class one-way. But if you want to bring your lap infant, you’d have to pay 10% of the cash fare, which could be thousands of dollars. A one-way flight is painfully priced high, and you might pay less if doing a roundtrip, but it’s still quite a dent. I’d say the rough average of what we paid for an infant was around $600 for the ticket.

This is where it can get confusing, because British Airways charges 10% of the Avios price but Iberia charges 10% of the cash fare on awards. If you’re debating bringing a lap infant, it might be worth it to not book your flight with Iberia Avios.

How to Best Search for Availability?

I don’t have an aversion to searching for Iberia award flights on Iberia’s website. They do have a calendar tool that works decently well. It’s not perfect–it seems to show strictly the cheapest Iberia pricing on that day and so it can be a challenge to find business pricing. But I would be searching at the far end of the calendar anyways for the best availability on high-demand routes.

Other considerations are using the free point.me tools or your own favorite search tool like Seats.aero to help search for awards.

Do Miles Expire?

Yes, Avios expire after 36 months if there is no activity in your account. You need to either earn or use a single Avios to extend their expiry, making it fairly easy to ensure they do not expire.

You might also wonder if pooling your Avios between your British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Qatar, or Finnair accounts will “reset” the expiry date on your Avios. It’s a convoluted yes-and-no answer. If your Iberia Avios are due to expire in three months, but your British Airways Avios are not due to expire for two years, transferring your Iberia Avios to British Airways will allow them to share the same two year lifespan as the rest of the British Airways Avios.

However, that account activity does not reset the British Airways account to three years nor does it add time to your Iberia Avios. Immediately transferring the Avios back to Iberia, you should still see the three month validity on those Avios. It thus might be easier to just think of it more as your account expiring in 36 months rather than the Avios themselves.

Suggested reading:

• Why You Need to Collect British Airways Avios
• Why You Need to Collect Qatar Avios
• How to Book Award Travel Like a Pro