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One of the Iberia Avios sweet spots is being able to book business class awards to Madrid from several US airports for only 34,000 Avios each way. If you’re interested in a trip to Europe in early 2021, there’s currently great business class award availability which, combined with a sale when buying Avios, means you can buy one way flights in business class to or from Europe from only $442.
The Deal
- Buy Iberia Avios for 1.3cpp.
- Direct Link To Buy
Key Terms
- Avios sale expires February 28, 2020.
- Limit 200,000 Avios purchase (plus 100,000 bonus Avios).
Quick Thoughts
We added this Avios sale to our roundup post of all current points sales earlier today, but thought it deserved its own post a) because it’s a pretty good deal and b) there’s currently great availability from the US to Madrid in business class.
There’s a trick to buying Iberia Avios for only 1.3cpp. If you try buying in US Dollars, you’re looking at a price of ~1.85cpp (the actual rate depends on how many you buy). However, if you change the country and language selection at the top of the screen to Spain-English, you’ll buy the Avios in Euros which works out to be 1.3cpp when converted to USD. You’ll therefore want to pay for these using a card that has no foreign transaction fee.
Buying Avios for 1.3cpp can provide great value, with one of the best options being business class from Chicago, New York or Boston to Madrid as that only costs 34,000 Avios each way in business class. At 1.3cpp, 34,000 Avios cost $442, although note that you’ll need to buy more than 34,000 to get the 1.3cpp rate. If you wanted to book a round trip flight, 67,500 Avios would cost you €845 which is about $912 when converted to USD. You could then transfer 1,000 points from a transferable currency to bump you up to the 68,000 you’d need for the round trip.
While award availability in business class to Madrid is pretty poor for the rest of this year, there’s great availability in January and February, with at least two seats bookable from New York to Madrid nearly every day on both flights each day.
There’s very good availability on the Madrid to New York route too, so you hopefully won’t have any problem making this a round trip if you want.
Although Iberia doesn’t have the best business class product out there, getting nonstop round trip flights with lie-flat seats for less than $920 (and as low as $884) is a decent deal.
h/t Thrifty Traveler for the heads up about the great award availability and OMAAT for the tip about how to buy Iberia Avios for 1.3cpp.
I have switched to Spain English and for 60k purchase i am getting a price of 1118€. Not sure what i am doing wrong?
That sounds about right. 1,118 EUR is ~$1,208. You’ll get 90,000 Avios (60,000 plus the 50% bonus) which is 1.34cpp.
These Avios bought during this promotion can be transferred to other Avios partners correct? This is a good price in any case.
Yes, you should be able to transfer these to other Avios partners.
This is a really good deal,I even found space for 2 from LIS to MIA in June.Iberia Business on Iberia is not fantastic,but it sure beats coach.They almost always have space in Premium economy which is also quite nice.
Stephen, I can’t see the total miles required per flight (I don’t have enough Avios in my account). Is there any way to know ahead of time for Iberia (I guess I can call?)? I was looking at lax-mad. Thanks!
I don’t have any Avios in my Iberia account either, but it still let me see the cost from JFK-MAD – I’m not sure why it wouldn’t let you see LAX-MAD.
I just checked and I’m not seeing the Avios price when originating from LAX either.