Yesterday I wrote about what will most likely be the biggest promotion of the year! At that time, I was undecided as to whether or not I would take advantage of the offer. The one thing I hate doing is purchasing points and miles speculatively without an actual game plan. Because I have two young kids I plan my travel far out in advance and cannot just jet out on a whim so easily. My kids have school and traveling without the kids requires grandma and grandpa to pitch in – so I need to plan in advance. But this promotion is incredibly low risk and has a huge upside! It also does not even require me to leave the house to take advantage. So I figured, why not! I’m going all in and someone will be able to use the miles!
Promotion Recap…
Iberia airlines is offering an awesome promotion where you can receive 9,000 Iberia Avios per flight booked – one way flights are eligible! You can take advantage of the promotion 10 times, so you can earn a maximum of 90,000 Iberia Avios per account. And the best thing is that Iberia even said that you’ll earn the points even if you do not actually take the flight! So find the cheapest flights available, book the flights, and you do not actually fly. Bonus points will be deposited to your account 10 days after you book your flight, but the huge caveat is that you must redeem the bonus points by December 1, 2018. Just make sure you are signed into your Iberia account when you are booking your flights. You can create an Iberia Plus account here. This promotion expires June 24, 2018 - since it might be based on local Spain time, I’d book by 6pm. Also, this is only eligible for accounts in the following countries: Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, or the US.
My Experience…
Although I took 24 hours to decide whether or not I was actually going to take advantage of this promotion, it literally took me less then 24 minutes to book all 10 flights. Iberia will allow you to save all of your personal information and credit card information in your account, so it was incredibly easy. Originally I was finding flights for $34 one-way, but Mommy Points reminded me of $28 flights from Santander-Madrid. I booked 10 of these flights, all within a 2 week period and I was good to go. But before you book go through Mr. Rebates! The cash back portal Mr. Rebates (create an account here) is offering $3 cash back on every “order”. UPDATE: Iberia is no longer showing on the Mr. Rebates cash back site. So 10 different flights booked on 10 different confirmation numbers will net you an extra $30 cash back. While I paid $277.30 on the 10 flights combined, I will also receive $30 cash back from Mr. Rebates for a total of $247.30!
I ended up taking advantage of this promotion on my husbands account as well, so another 10 flights booked at a total of $250. I have yet to decide whether or not I’ll go fully all in on with my kids accounts, but probably not. I also would not recommend creating multiple Iberia accounts for the same person.
Where I Will Use My Avios…
Since I am Boston based, using miles on American Airlines doesn’t give me the best options since it is a distance based award chart and flights cost a good amount of miles. There actually are minimal non-stop flights unfortunately. Something I definitely miss by no longer living in NYC! Going to Mexico or the Caribbean isn’t ideal since there are hardly no non-stops (and the ones that too exist have limited availability), but going to Los Angeles could work. Of course if I needed to get to New York, DC, or Chicago it would work but as of right now I do not have anything planned. In my ideal situation I’ll use the miles to go to Madrid. I’d love for that to be able to work out and round trip flights are as low as 34,000 miles! And since I’d be flying Iberia metal taxes are pretty low. So by maximizing this promotion on two accounts, Madrid is absolutely do-able – and we could even fly business class one-way! Although finding award availability for a family of 4 is going to be quite challenging.
Will you be taking advantage of this promotion? Where will you be using your miles?
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That’s what you call “all in?” I bought 80 tickets…
@Marvin – went all in for my account. Just completed for my husbands account 🙂 And now stopping. Other friends and family members taking advantage too, but they are responsible for booking their flights!
I know I’m taking quite the risk. But I just couldn’t resist. 😉
Of course it’s 8 people in total taking advantage of this, for a moment I was considering signing up my dog… 😉
Will you take any of those flights? You can buy and not use?
@Alton Yu – Yes, you can buy and not use.
Where are you finding the $3 per order rebate with Mr Rebates? I’m not seeing it anywhere on the MR Rebates site. Thanks!
It was taken down today, likely to greatly increased demand.
Yeah… too bad. Thx.
I’ve never booked with iberia before. After receiving the points. Can I book flights for others. Ex: my parents. I wouldn’t be flying. Only them.
Booked 10 OW flights on Sunday – total cost $374 or .415 CPM
Purchased 10 OW flights on Sat. 6/23. All ten still showing as pending on credit card account whereas pending typically goes to final within 2 days. Wondering if Iberia will finalize purchases. Anyone else still showing as pending?