Gist of the new Club Iberia Plus program – dump BA?!

As many us had been speculating, Iberia just announced new changes to their Iberia Plus program, following the recent reform (devaluation) of the British Airways program.

You have the official announcement as a reference, many blog posts covering the change and lengthy discussions in this Flyertalk thread. As a result, I’m not going to write up a full analysis, but just point you to some key takeaways instead.

[New tier system]

The Club Iberia Plus system is very similar to BA’s, but better in almost every way.

• Tier thresholds:
  • Plata / Oneworld Ruby, 3,500 EP or 20 segments
  • Oro / Oneworld Sapphire, 7,500 EP or 40 segments
  • Platino / Oneworld Emerald: 20,000 EP or 90 segments
• EP thresholds are exactly the same as BA, however you earn 1 EP / €1 (not £1) so that’s already 20% quicker!
• Plus, you earn a permanent fixed bonus on every IB / BA / AA segments, depending on the distance and cabin travelled, as opposed to BA’s temporary welcome bonus
• You can qualify based solely on segments and it’s fewer than BA; however only Iberia and Iberia Express coded flights are eligible

For other partners, earning is distance- and cabin-based, which is simpler and more generous than BA’s baffling chart.

[Non-flying earning]

An exciting update is you’ll be able to earn 1 EP per 10 Avios earned through non-flying partners, although it’s capped at 30% of the EP required for tier upgrade or requalification.

You can earn via e.g. hotel stays, surveys, Bicester Village shopping and Iberia Plus Store. Unfortunately, in the small print it’s clear that point transfers from say American Express aren’t eligible, but I’m not so sure about hotel point transfers.

In their presentation deck Melia is used as an example. Melia however doesn’t have an “earn direct” feature, but you earn Melia points and they get transferred over to Avios. If such transfers are qualifying then it would be fairly easy to earn that 30% non-flying EP.

Another interesting find: if you purchase BA Holidays / Iberia Vacaciones, the lead passenger who pays will earn all the EP (10 per Avios), instead of it being split across all passengers like with BA.

[Examples]

Let’s talk examples and here are five scenarios (return trips):

1. European Business: pre-tax fare €200, earning 200+175*2=550 EP, 7.3% to Sapphire

2. European Business with a stop, e.g. MAN-LHR-MUC and LHR-MAD-VLC: pre-tax fare €200, earning 200 + 175*4=900 EP, 12% to Sapphire

3. Cathay Asia Premium Economy with a stop, e.g. PVG-HKG-SIN: earning (200+450)*2 = 1,300 EP, 17.3% to Sapphire

4. BA long-haul flex business, e.g. LHR-JFK: pre-tax fare €3,000, earning 3000+500*2=4,000 EP, 53.3% to Sapphire

5. Qatar Airways business with a stop, e.g. LHR-DOH-HKG: earning 1,250*4=5,000 EP, 66.7% to Sapphire

I’m using Sapphire (Iberia Oro) as a goal in all examples as it’s the most cost-effective tier. I feel Club Iberia Plus is slightly worse than the now BAEC, but an absolute heaven compared to the upcoming British Airways Club.

Summary:

• From April, DO NOT credit any flight to BA as Iberia is by all means a better option
• Iberia is comparable to some other options inside Oneworld, e.g. Finnair and Alaska, but I can’t tell which is better or worse
• If your fly pattern involves many segments or frequent premium economy travel, Iberia is brilliant for status qualification
• Finally, Royal Air Maroc is still the easiest and cheapest to earn status, by a huge margin