A week and a half ago, I broke the news regarding a possible re-zoning of a few popular Iberia destinations. This would result in more Avios being charged. Nothing has ultimately changed, however, since when you click through to actually reserve an award flight, the regular pricing prevails…

Recently I noticed another potential change. Reward flights on partner airlines are now supposedly being charged on a flight-by-flight basis. Many readers will be interested in using their Avios on American Airlines domestic flights, and this change – if confirmed – would hit them hard.

This is the partner award chart now published on the Iberia Plus website.

I’ll save you the time to Google… this chart looks EXACTLY the same as British Airways Executive Club’s partner award chart.

And it looks nothing like the partner award chart that led to such good redemptions on short hops in the United States…

I wanted to do some dummy bookings to prove it… but Iberia Plus is not showing any partner awards online at the moment.

Don’t EVER Book Partner Awards via Iberia Plus Now

It’s worth reminding readers that Iberia Plus awards are completely non-refundable, unless you fly ONLY on Iberia or British Airways.

Since the award chart is now identical to British Airways’ version, you should always Combine Your Avios to BA and book your award flights there. Via BA you can always cancel award flights for $55 or the amount of taxes paid, whichever is lower. (and for US domestic flights you will always pay less than $55 in airport taxes)

The Bottom Line

Perhaps the changes to Chicago and Los Angeles were just a false alarm. (or perhaps a premonition of an upcoming change that hasn’t been correctly implemented)

But this change makes all the sense in the world. The Avios group is aiming to standardise award pricing across the various airlines owned by IAG. But that still results in a pretty substantial devaluation for those US-based members who had taken advantage of Iberia Plus’ generous award chart for a few years now…