In business in the U.S. from 34,000 points, much less than with Alitalia
Modern fleet, lots of award seat availability at similar or lower cost than Alitalia. Here's how to use Iberia membership rewards points
Iberia
Oneworld
MAD
The beauty of the membership rewards points is to be a real currency that can be transformed as needed to buy airline tickets, book hotel rooms, buy groceries and more.
In this article:
One of the most common mistakes Italian users make when it comes to airline tickets is to think that the cheapest conversion is the one to convert MR points into Alitalia Millemiglia points, but this is not always the case.
The table de Italian carrier award is "rigid", while many companies have a different price list for high and low season. Other companies do Bids every month to "sell off" unsold places also lowering by 50% the miles required to buy an award ticket.
Last but not least, when you plan to use MR points or miles to redeem an award ticket, you should always take into account the actual price of the same ticket and the fees we will still be forced to pay even when taking a flight with miles.
Iberia's offer
The Madrid-based airline is part of the IAG group along with British Airways and Vueling. The main advantage of Avios is that they can be used indifferently in the various companies of the group and be transferred, or merged, without any problems.
The Spanish carrier has a fleet consisting entirely of Airbuses; on long-haul it has the new A350/900 and the soon-to-be decommissioned A330s and A340s.
Iberia's calendar has two seasons: high and low. Broadly speaking, we can imagine the summer calendar as high season, along with holidays and other dates scattered throughout the rest of the year. Spring bridges, on the other hand, are almost all considered low season and therefore more convenient for us Italians.
Regarding the award table, there is one more difference with Alitalia. While for AZ, for example, the US is one area and there is no different cost if you fly to New York or Los Angeles, in the case of IB there are two different costs.
Flying to the U.S. using fewer points than with Alitalia
La New Alitalia will restart from very few intercontinental destinations and with few frequencies, this means that it will be difficult to find award places, difficult not impossible, that's why we want to explain how to take advantage of MR points by converting them to other airlines as needed.
Iberia can count on a very solid network to both American continents, with many more destinations than AZ in both North and South America.
If we look at the United States, in addition to the classic New York and Los Angeles, Iberia also offers Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami-all destinations that will not be served by Alitalia until at least 2022.
At this time the availability on Alitalia to the U.S. in 2021 is virtually exhausted, in contrast on Iberia there are still plenty of seats in all three travel classes: tourist, premium tourist and business. It is also possible to find 4 business seats on the same flight, which is impossible on AZ.
In low season periods, you can fly from Madrid to New York for as low as 17 thousand Avios one-way. Again in comparison with the Italian carrier, there is no different cost if you book a one-way ticket, while with AZ the price is 50k Millemiglia points for the one-way flight only and 40k points one way in the case of round-trip.
This means you can get a ticket in biz effortlessly thanks to the promotion dedicated to new customers who become holders of American Express Gold
In the image we see how you can detach a round-trip ticket starting from 34k Avios in economy class up to 68k Avios for business.
Recall that. the conversion rate between MR points and Avios is 5:4, this means that for an economy you will need to transfer 42,500 MR points or 85k points for a business. In contrast, AZ tickets would cost 50k MM points for an economy and 80k for a Magnifica.
As you can see, flying to the west coast of the USA has a slightly higher cost: in fact, it starts from 21,500 Avios instead of 17 thousand. This is a greater use of points than the Az award ticket, but one must take into account that there is still availability on Spanish planes, which is nonexistent on Italian ones.
Important If you want to book a ticket for a different person, you will need to link the passenger to the list of beneficiaries linked to your profile before making the purchase. In addition, award seats on Iberia are made available 360 days in advance, while Alitalia makes tickets bookable 330 days in advance.
Do you want to know how Use your Membership Rewards points? Check out the other articles On our website.
