Iberia reward pricing in Y

I've always been confused by Iberia economy reward pricing - so with the new Madrid to Fortaleza service having wide open availability, it's a good route to discover how it works.  Good luck finding one of the 14 business class seats on the A321XLR to Fortaleza available for Avios redemption though!

First off let's see what British Airways charge for a London to Fortaleza redemption.

Assuming we value an Avios at 1p, the best option is 13,000 Avios and £560 - the equivalent of about £690 for the return flight.

If you have an Amex 2-4-1 voucher it's the 52,250 Avios and £265 x2 option that offers best value - the equivalent of about £527 per person.

Cash fares on Iberia seem to be over £900 and TAP are selling seats for around £820 - meaning Avios redemptions do represent reasonable value.  There's also the advantage with reward tickets of being able to cancel them for a very modest fee.

Now let's have a look at what British Airways charge for a Madrid to Fortaleza redemption.

Again the best option is the smallest number of Avios - 8,500 and £317 - the equivalent of about £402 for the return flight.  This represents a saving of about £288 over the London option.

If you have an Amex 2-4-1 voucher it's the 34,000 Avios and £117 x2 option that offers best value - the equivalent of about £287 per person.  This represents a saving of about £240 per person compared to the London option.

Now let's look at Iberia.  For Economy reward flights, sometimes Iberia offer a choice of Economy Class or Blue Class.  Often you will not see the Blue Class option - or it may only be available on some of the sectors of a trip.

It's taken me years to understand the difference - but essentially the Blue Class is slightly cheaper (as we'll see in a minute) but has modest fees for changes and cancellations.

Google AI currently says that Blue Class tickets do not come with free seat selection - but Iberia's website claims that they do.  I haven't tested it out, so cannot confirm which is true!

So back to the Madrid to Fortaleza reward booking on Iberia - selecting Blue Class for both sectors gives the following options:

I currently have 20,000 Avios sitting in my Iberia account - hence why some options come with the "Buy Avios" heading.  Once again it's the smallest number of Avios which offers best value - 8,500 and £317 for around £402 in total.  This matches exactly the BA website price.

Upgrading both sectors to the Economy Class option produces:

The 8,800 Avios and £347 option is the best choice - around £435 in total.  So upgrading from Blue Class to Economy Class costs around £33 in this instance - and for that you're avoiding the 25 euro change/cancellation fee.  Often there will only be Economy Class reward seats available.

Just for completeness I checked the London to Fortaleza options on the Iberia website.  After some difficulty selecting Blue Class for all four sectors (I found that selecting Blue Class on the long haul sector first before the short haul helped) - Iberia eventually offered the same Avios options as British Airways, but all the payments were £6 higher than on BA.

Conclusion

Using this economy reward flight example, the saving for starting in Madrid is around £288 - with the requirement to buy a London to Madrid return, and losing the protection of a through ticket.

If you were using a 2-4-1 Amex voucher the saving would be about £240 per person.

So whilst the savings from Madrid on Business Class redemption flights are often so much bigger than it can justify booking separate tickets - for me on Y redemptions it's just not worth it.