Spain’s Iberia Airlines is renowned for its frustrating IT systems.

Oneworld elite benefits are rarely recognized – at least ahead of time – meaning that Iberia tries to charge for a seat selection that should be free. A workaround – requiring a download of the Iberia App – has also stopped working…

More recently, Iberia “ran out” of numbers for its Iberia Plus members. Iberia Plus membership numbers used to contain 8 digits – something that limits Iberia Plus to 99,999,999 memberships since the program began in the mid-1990s. However, when new members were assigned a 9-digit membership number, the 8-digit length was hard-coded so that banking partners would not accept 9-digit numbers for point transfers.

Bank Error in my Favor?

I recently received an email from Iberia. The email was titled “Craig, we want to compensate you“. Intrigued, I opened it.

The email contained details of a 20 euro ($20) voucher to compensate me for the delay to my flight.  I simply must spend it before January 1, 2023 on an Iberia Airlines flight departing before October 1, 2023.

That is nice… except my flight was on time. The only disruption was that my selected exit row seat was not actually in the exit row, meaning that there must have been a late equipment change. But for a short flight it really didn’t matter.

Bottom Line

More airlines could learn to proactively offer compensation to their passengers, in the form of discounts on their next flight. A 20-euro voucher makes it far more likely that I choose Iberia for my next trip.

However… it is quite amusing that I am being “compensated” for an on-time flight. The joys of Iberia IT…