I was very proud of myself for booking a flight from Madrid to Chicago on Iberia business using British Avios. It was considerably cheaper than flying British metal. That triumphant moment was cut short when a helpful reader reminded me that I should’ve booked directly on Iberia.com which cuts the fuel surcharges in half.
Anxious, I called BA and cancelled within the 24 hour time period. This time they refunded my money and points instead of forcing me to take them to small claims court. Next, I logged in to my BA account and tried to initiate the transfer. I received an error stating that my Iberia account was not recognized. I logged into my Iberia account and tried it there. It recognized my BA account but the transaction resulted in an error when I tried to transfer the points.
I thought the issue was the zero balance on my Iberia account. I went to Amex and tried to transfer points but, once again, I received a message saying that my Iberia account was unrecognized. I called BA which said it would have to investigate the matter. That could take 7 business days. I called Iberia which asked if I had opened my account in 90 days. A recently opened account could trigger the same error. I opened the account 5 years ago so that was not the problem. Iberia said it would have to investigate the transfer and sent me an ID verification form. They said it would take 7 days to process that.
In the mean time, Iberia validated my account and I was able to transfer 200 points from Amex to my Iberia account. Interestingly, neither BA nor Iberia cited my zero account balance as the reason that the transfer did not go through.
Now I wait and hope that the flight will still be available…in 7 business days.
Don’t you have to have earned at least one IB+ point in order to transfer from BAEC? – I think an Iberia+ account has to be at least 90 days old and you have to have earned at least one Iberia avio for it to “activate”. The transfer from BAEC to IB+ tends not to work anyway. The work around is to transfer via avios.com which you won’t be able to use as you need to be UK resident to have an avios account – at least for the time being I think. Or it could be the other way around….
Yeah i had earned that way back when and that isn’t the issue.
Is your name exactly the same on both accounts? Had a friend have a similar issue caused by slight differences in name listing between BA and IB.
And if IB reactivated your account (which seems likely given you were able to transfer in MR), then you ought to try the BA to IB transfer again. Might work now.
BA to IB now says that I can’t do this.
I recently had trouble doing the same and after much painful investigation, realized that my birthdates didn’t match between accounts!
Checked that, changed the address (if that makes a difference) and verified phone…let’s give it a few hours
I’m getting this, when trying to combine my Iberia Plus into my BA EC:
Your session has timed out, please log in again
Su sesion ha caducado, por favor, acceda de nuevo
Ihre Sitzung ist abgelaufen, bitte melden Sie sich erneut
Votre session a expire, s’il vous plait vous connecter a nouveau
La sessione e scaduta, si prega di accedere di nuovo
I have been receiving this message for a month now. Any body else experiencing this?
not yet!
I have had so many issues regarding my names matching and so on. Had to scan my passport and still I cant transfer points.
Lol yes. Sent passport already
If you setup and account on avios.com using a UK address, you should be able to transfer the points back and forth no probem… BA->AVIOS->IB.
Finally got it to work!
Iberia IT dept and their communication skills (email and phone) is one of the worst I have ever experienced. It is even worse than British Airways. I had so much trouble getting my miles back after cancelling an award flight that required at least 20 emails and 15 phone calls!
They don’t read the “specifics” of the emails or really listen to phone conversations and “gloss” over the details and keeps asking the same questions over and over again and then answers the same questions.
I will be very glad when I draw down ALL of my Iberia miles.
British Airways is also very “shady” when depositing miles after and cancelled award flight. I had to call several times to get the miles back (they said they can’t find the award reservation on their system – how convenient) – either the IT is bad or they are just shady! They had to start an “investigation” just to find out the award flight and redeposit the miles..BA and Iberia sucks in their customer service!
shady? you don’t say….http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2016/07/29/18938/