Oneworld Sapphire after three short-haul flights!

I thought British Airways was already very slow in publishing their COVID-19 membership extension policy, but obviously there are worse ones out there – its sister airline Iberia hasn’t even started it yet.

Instead, Iberia has decided to run a promotion to “help”: for any tickets purchased between 01/06/2019 and 15/07/2020, and travel dates falling between 01/07/2020 and 31/08/2020, the passenger will be awarded bonus Elite Points (EP).

You get quadruple points on short- and medium-haul flights (under 3,000 miles), and double points on long-haul flights (IB6XXXX). Note that only Iberia, Iberia Express and Air Nostrum operated flights are included.

This chart shows the EP earned between Spain and some countries.

	Discounted Economy	Discounted Business
Spain Domestic	15	35
Portugal	25	75
UK, Ireland, France, Italy	35	115
Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Finland	75	225
Egypt, Lebanon, Israel	100	300

And the EP required to reach Plata (Ruby) / Oro (Sapphire) / Platino (Emerald) are 1,100 / 2,250 / 6,250 respectively.

So if you fly discounted business between Spain and Germany, 3 one-ways will elevate you to Sapphire already, and 7 for Emerald. This is very probably the fastest way to attain Oneworld Elite status across the entire alliance.

Departing from UK, it requires 5 and 14 one-ways respectively. The status is valid through March 2022, so around 20 months validity which is very good.

However, I’ve had a quick look and the prices are definitely not cheap – a business return from London to Madrid costs more than £300. And I’m not sure I should / want to fly at this moment either.

So instead of extending its members’ status directly, Iberia is basically encouraging them to purchase tickets and fly – very creative…