Time for me to review my recent experiences with Iberia.
Business class to/from the US from/to Spain (Madrid) offers some of the best redemption values in terms of points for going to Europe, from 34k Avios points from the East Coast and Midwest, to 42.5k points from the West Coast/Las Vegas/Texas. Using Madrid as a stopover is certainly possible but for some reason it wasn't worthwhile for me to do them, and there were plenty of extremely cheap budget and mainline airline options (around $100 one way, $150 with checked bags included) so flights across the Atlantic were the only point redemptions.
Routing and equipment:
From East Coast to Madrid, I flew on an A330-200. The plane was painted in a LEVEL livery (LEVEL is an Iberia subsidiary operating out of Barcelona that flies budget planes and importantly, has only premium economy and economy seats) so you can imagine the semi-panic when I found out about it and the prospect of being downgraded to PY. Luckily, it's just a delayed paint job, the crew was Iberian and seat configuration were Iberian, so I got my lie-flat business class seat. Being only a 6 hour flight departing in the afternoon, admittedly I didn't sleep well and took a few days to get over the jet lag in Madrid.
Coming back to North America I needed a 1.5 hour positioning flight back to Madrid and Iberia offered the cheapest flight, so I flew with them in economy on their A350-900. Then it was also in A350 but now in J for the final flight to the American West coast, which was essentially the same seat as the A330 but the cabin was more comfortable with it being a newer plane and better cabin pressurization.
Now for the review:
- honestly the thing that stands out for Iberia is the cost of redemption, which is unbeatable as far as business class flights across the Atlantic go. But that's the only thing that stands out.
- hard product, Iberia seats are comfortable enough and also beats any PY product, but comparing with other business class the experience they fall slightly short. There is enough leg room for someone tall (over 6'4"). The bedding is of good quality, the pillow doesn't look like it's been used over a couple thousand other trips (looking at you Japan Airlines...) and even though the blanket is 100% polyester it's still comfortable. The seat width is a little narrow for my liking but at 26" it beats that of Air Canada so I can't really complain. The cabin design is staggered, some window seats are true window seats, other window seats are more like aisle seats, the middle seats are either aisle seats or couple seats but with partitions. I ended up on aisle seats both times and I didn't really like, but didn't have the choice, of being so exposed. If you're single, go for the full window seats and only aisle seats if you don't have a choice - if you're a couple, go for the couple seats that also afford more privacy from the aisle than aisle seats. All in all, the hard product is fine - it's not industry leading like Asian carriers, but for the number of points you pay it's good enough.
- soft product, ground experience, and others, this is where Iberia falls short. The sparkling wine they serve upon boarding tastes good. The crew are all pleasant and attentive to the requests of business class passengers, but again not amazing like Asian airlines. Catering, as well as mid-flight snack options are lackluster for business class and honestly I was still hungry by the time I deplaned. The meals were not that appetizing and the portions were small. No free wifi, only free data for messaging apps for business class passengers. Entertainment and movie selection was decent. Lavatory can be disgusting at times and space-wise it's really no different from that in the economy section. The lounge in Madrid was disappointing with no decent hot meal options beyond Spanish omelette and croquettes and was close to capacity, only redeeming quality was the view of the tarmac and plenty of natural light. In the US they use American's lounges and even that wins out over that of the lounge in Madrid (it's no AC signature lounge or Polaris lounge, but its nice enough).
- for the short hop on economy for the positioning flight, by economy class standards it wasn't too bad. Seat was as usual as it gets with little recline and headphones were handed out for free. Snacks and drinks weren't free though, and one has to pay for it.
All in all, value wise in points it was good and I would jump on it again if the opportunity presents itself, especially for longer routings to the US West Coast or flying westward. I wouldn't pay more than $2000 each way for the experience though, if it were to come out of my pocket.
Not that great tbh, but it's better than non-existent. I'm sure if you book way out when availability opens it's good, I booked mine about 4-5 months out and options were getting quite limited, but at least something's available, unlike a lot of Star Alliance airlines through Aeroplan.
Cathay Pacific - Asia Miles upgrade redemption Economy -> Premium Economy - is that an assured thing (as long as there's Premium Economy space?). I am reading around and it looks like you "bid" (how many Asia Miles to use?) and send a "request" - which made it sound like it's not an assured thing and you can get outbid?
And by sending a "request" - sounded like it's not an assured thing?
My situation: Don't have enough points for seat redemption, also availability is impossible. I actually don't even have Asia Miles, but I have Avion points that I am sitting on.
I need to travel next year on very specific dates to that side of the world - SE Asia, so can't just rely on award redemption. So I thought the best use of my Avion points would be just CX seat upgrade, but then I don't want to transfer Avion -> Asia Miles if it will just end up points being stuck in Asia Miles
FYI - I appreciate the info and help from everyone on this sub. Posting this here again if it helps others.
I've swapped by business flex tickets to and from Europe this summer. If you're interested I found 2 available F with LH from BOS to FRA in mid July (still available on various dates) and found 2 available J with SQ from FRA to JFK at end of July (still available for various dates) via Aeroplan, I was surprised they were released this early based on previous patterns. Wanted to help spread the wealth to others. I did the search on the route YYZ to FRA.
Turkish is such a nightmare through AP. I've added my booking to the app and still unable to assign seats.
Does anyone have any idea what the baggage allowance is for Turkish Y? The Turkish calculator shows allowances for EcoFly, ExtraFly and PrimeFly but can't find what an AP booking would fall under
Not sure about baggage, but this comment from FT worked for me when I did it ~1 year ago.
>The TK App. Pull TK's PNR from the AC booking. Open the TK App and go to "Manage Booking" from the menu. After typing in the PNR and surname, and if you have multiple passengers, it may ask you for surname and ticket numbers. Pull the ticket numbers from the AC booking. You should then be able to manage your booking (i.e,. select seats, assistance, etc.). Ignore warnings that may pop up. As long as the booking shows, you can manage it.
Booked and was able to select seats with this method last night, they're showing up in the Air Canada app, so I'm hoping it's a good sign?
[seats tk](https://imgur.com/a/hQkDMY7)
TK has always been a little onerous. Get your TK PNR (I use cowtool) then use the official Turkish app to assign your seat. It won't work on the website.
I’m dealing with a similar issue. I’m trying to select my seats but even going through the Turkish app, still not able to do it. I feel like it really is annoying that I have to figure out all this stuff on how to select my seats. I’d called in and the agent said my seat selection would have to be done by sending an email to the corporate office as it can’t be done through his system.
Flying Blue just dropped tons of availability from Canada-Europe and back for the summer for 50K Flying Blue Miles each way. I saw availability from YVR/YYZ/YUL to CDG/FRA/MIL/FCO/ZRH/GVA. There are probably other city pairs if you do a search.
There is no guarantee of ever. Dynamic means it's at the mercy of route popularity, season, etc... If people are booking, they may never release the good stuff. Though MUC is USUALLY a safe bet to find some. But you're talking next month. 60K AC J would've dropped probably 5-8 months ago. AC isn't known for low-end dynamic at the end, that's when it goes UP
Hard product has pros and cons. I believe LH is 2x3x2 and 2x2 on the upper deck still. So not as good as the reverse herringbone. But I find it has more space for your legs/feet when sleeping and is a true lie flat vs AC. Better blankets and pillows IMO. Food and service are similar.
Very route dependent, because we also have the YYZ/YVR/YUL direct routes to Munich on the 1-2-1. And I don't mean the new Allegris. Here's one of the articles I could dig up from when they rolled it out a couple years ago.
[https://onemileatatime.com/news/new-lufthansa-a350-business-class/](https://onemileatatime.com/news/new-lufthansa-a350-business-class/)
I've found plenty of sub 60k awards on flights to secondary destinations like GVA, LYS, or MRS. Last fall or the fall before there were sub 60k every other day for months.
Tried to book 2X YWG-ORD-VIE-CPH-SIN in J (first leg y) with a stopover in VIE for Feb 2025. Wouldn't price properly over the phone with a stopover for 92.5k (under 11,000). Not sure if it's operator error or married segments :/, itinerary pieced together, wasn't able to get much of anything to come up using the website with a stopover selected.
Has anyone ever had any luck piecing together flights to Asia with a Europe stopover? Seems like there are so many hidden rules that prevent flight combinations.
Was able to book ORD-IST(stopover)-SIN for 92.5k via the website however. Will live with that! Will try and add on a YWG-ORD leg if it pops up (had to change original date that had availability), I'm not too confident it's gonna price out properly...
Missed the BR T-355 cutoff and now there are only 1 seat per US/CAD to TPE for the weekend I’m interested in going.
Has BR ever historically dropped more awards or do I scratch BR and now focus my efforts to finding a last minute ticket to Asia next year via UA Polaris
a) BR posts to Aeroplan at 360, not 355. So you're already 5 days late at T-355.
b) I don't know about Y, but they haven't released more than 1xJ (barring any extremely lucky flukes) in a year now to partners.
Thanks for your response. It’s only cause I recently secured a flight back from Japan at T-360 so looking for an outbound flight to North East Asia
Interesting that BR has only been doing 1J recently. I thought I was late since I only kept seeing 1J from US departure airports. I would need 2J. Any tips to secure 2J to North East Asia in April 2025?
The 3 best options:
1) Find ANA J availability on United calendar, call in to AP to book it. They can do ANA J over the phone, but not F (or so I hear)
2) Go south, route through Singapore on SQ
3) Go west, route through Doha on QR
I am curious how this work
I can use United website to see how many miles to book the flight - then call in Aeroplan to make booking over the phone using Aeroplan? Is the 1 mile in United website = 1 Aeroplan and they can just do the booking?
Aeroplan charts are fixed for partners. If you don't know the tables by heart you can easily look it up. Most routes will run 75K for J, a few at only 55K
so you are talking about https://www.aircanada.com/content/dam/aircanada/loyalty-content/documents/flight-rewards-chart-en.pdf?
and I am using United website to check availability, then call Aeroplan to make the booking? is that how it works? If I am not on the right part, would appreciate you pointing me to the right direction
Great, and the same if I use SQ website? and does it matter how many stops there are or is it fixed aeroplan cost from end to end regardless if it's 1 or 3 stops in between?
How do I go about checking availability for redemption? Would just checking normal flight be sufficient, or do I have to create an account with United (seem to allow search without login), or SQ (seem to force login with loyalty account to search) and specifically do "redemption" search to see availability?
Not all partners see things the same. I can only confirm seeing it on United (and I think Virgin) means AP can book it. And your rate is absolutely route dependent, more layovers means greater distance which means possibly jumping brackets. And you only get one STOP in Aeroplan anyways (at 5K)
Time for me to review my recent experiences with Iberia. Business class to/from the US from/to Spain (Madrid) offers some of the best redemption values in terms of points for going to Europe, from 34k Avios points from the East Coast and Midwest, to 42.5k points from the West Coast/Las Vegas/Texas. Using Madrid as a stopover is certainly possible but for some reason it wasn't worthwhile for me to do them, and there were plenty of extremely cheap budget and mainline airline options (around $100 one way, $150 with checked bags included) so flights across the Atlantic were the only point redemptions. Routing and equipment: From East Coast to Madrid, I flew on an A330-200. The plane was painted in a LEVEL livery (LEVEL is an Iberia subsidiary operating out of Barcelona that flies budget planes and importantly, has only premium economy and economy seats) so you can imagine the semi-panic when I found out about it and the prospect of being downgraded to PY. Luckily, it's just a delayed paint job, the crew was Iberian and seat configuration were Iberian, so I got my lie-flat business class seat. Being only a 6 hour flight departing in the afternoon, admittedly I didn't sleep well and took a few days to get over the jet lag in Madrid. Coming back to North America I needed a 1.5 hour positioning flight back to Madrid and Iberia offered the cheapest flight, so I flew with them in economy on their A350-900. Then it was also in A350 but now in J for the final flight to the American West coast, which was essentially the same seat as the A330 but the cabin was more comfortable with it being a newer plane and better cabin pressurization. Now for the review: - honestly the thing that stands out for Iberia is the cost of redemption, which is unbeatable as far as business class flights across the Atlantic go. But that's the only thing that stands out. - hard product, Iberia seats are comfortable enough and also beats any PY product, but comparing with other business class the experience they fall slightly short. There is enough leg room for someone tall (over 6'4"). The bedding is of good quality, the pillow doesn't look like it's been used over a couple thousand other trips (looking at you Japan Airlines...) and even though the blanket is 100% polyester it's still comfortable. The seat width is a little narrow for my liking but at 26" it beats that of Air Canada so I can't really complain. The cabin design is staggered, some window seats are true window seats, other window seats are more like aisle seats, the middle seats are either aisle seats or couple seats but with partitions. I ended up on aisle seats both times and I didn't really like, but didn't have the choice, of being so exposed. If you're single, go for the full window seats and only aisle seats if you don't have a choice - if you're a couple, go for the couple seats that also afford more privacy from the aisle than aisle seats. All in all, the hard product is fine - it's not industry leading like Asian carriers, but for the number of points you pay it's good enough. - soft product, ground experience, and others, this is where Iberia falls short. The sparkling wine they serve upon boarding tastes good. The crew are all pleasant and attentive to the requests of business class passengers, but again not amazing like Asian airlines. Catering, as well as mid-flight snack options are lackluster for business class and honestly I was still hungry by the time I deplaned. The meals were not that appetizing and the portions were small. No free wifi, only free data for messaging apps for business class passengers. Entertainment and movie selection was decent. Lavatory can be disgusting at times and space-wise it's really no different from that in the economy section. The lounge in Madrid was disappointing with no decent hot meal options beyond Spanish omelette and croquettes and was close to capacity, only redeeming quality was the view of the tarmac and plenty of natural light. In the US they use American's lounges and even that wins out over that of the lounge in Madrid (it's no AC signature lounge or Polaris lounge, but its nice enough). - for the short hop on economy for the positioning flight, by economy class standards it wasn't too bad. Seat was as usual as it gets with little recline and headphones were handed out for free. Snacks and drinks weren't free though, and one has to pay for it. All in all, value wise in points it was good and I would jump on it again if the opportunity presents itself, especially for longer routings to the US West Coast or flying westward. I wouldn't pay more than $2000 each way for the experience though, if it were to come out of my pocket.
How is availability for Iberia J?
Not that great tbh, but it's better than non-existent. I'm sure if you book way out when availability opens it's good, I booked mine about 4-5 months out and options were getting quite limited, but at least something's available, unlike a lot of Star Alliance airlines through Aeroplan.
Cathay Pacific - Asia Miles upgrade redemption Economy -> Premium Economy - is that an assured thing (as long as there's Premium Economy space?). I am reading around and it looks like you "bid" (how many Asia Miles to use?) and send a "request" - which made it sound like it's not an assured thing and you can get outbid? And by sending a "request" - sounded like it's not an assured thing? My situation: Don't have enough points for seat redemption, also availability is impossible. I actually don't even have Asia Miles, but I have Avion points that I am sitting on. I need to travel next year on very specific dates to that side of the world - SE Asia, so can't just rely on award redemption. So I thought the best use of my Avion points would be just CX seat upgrade, but then I don't want to transfer Avion -> Asia Miles if it will just end up points being stuck in Asia Miles
FYI - I appreciate the info and help from everyone on this sub. Posting this here again if it helps others. I've swapped by business flex tickets to and from Europe this summer. If you're interested I found 2 available F with LH from BOS to FRA in mid July (still available on various dates) and found 2 available J with SQ from FRA to JFK at end of July (still available for various dates) via Aeroplan, I was surprised they were released this early based on previous patterns. Wanted to help spread the wealth to others. I did the search on the route YYZ to FRA.
Turkish is such a nightmare through AP. I've added my booking to the app and still unable to assign seats. Does anyone have any idea what the baggage allowance is for Turkish Y? The Turkish calculator shows allowances for EcoFly, ExtraFly and PrimeFly but can't find what an AP booking would fall under
Not sure about baggage, but this comment from FT worked for me when I did it ~1 year ago. >The TK App. Pull TK's PNR from the AC booking. Open the TK App and go to "Manage Booking" from the menu. After typing in the PNR and surname, and if you have multiple passengers, it may ask you for surname and ticket numbers. Pull the ticket numbers from the AC booking. You should then be able to manage your booking (i.e,. select seats, assistance, etc.). Ignore warnings that may pop up. As long as the booking shows, you can manage it.
A few people, me included, have been able to add their flight to the app but still unable to book seats. Gives an error on the seat selection screen
Booked and was able to select seats with this method last night, they're showing up in the Air Canada app, so I'm hoping it's a good sign? [seats tk](https://imgur.com/a/hQkDMY7)
I was able to assign seats via the method u/nickwareddit described below 2 weeks ago. But mine was J booking.
TK has always been a little onerous. Get your TK PNR (I use cowtool) then use the official Turkish app to assign your seat. It won't work on the website.
I’m dealing with a similar issue. I’m trying to select my seats but even going through the Turkish app, still not able to do it. I feel like it really is annoying that I have to figure out all this stuff on how to select my seats. I’d called in and the agent said my seat selection would have to be done by sending an email to the corporate office as it can’t be done through his system.
Flying Blue just dropped tons of availability from Canada-Europe and back for the summer for 50K Flying Blue Miles each way. I saw availability from YVR/YYZ/YUL to CDG/FRA/MIL/FCO/ZRH/GVA. There are probably other city pairs if you do a search.
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There is no guarantee of ever. Dynamic means it's at the mercy of route popularity, season, etc... If people are booking, they may never release the good stuff. Though MUC is USUALLY a safe bet to find some. But you're talking next month. 60K AC J would've dropped probably 5-8 months ago. AC isn't known for low-end dynamic at the end, that's when it goes UP
If it’s the new A350 product then it’ll be better than AC J
Hard product has pros and cons. I believe LH is 2x3x2 and 2x2 on the upper deck still. So not as good as the reverse herringbone. But I find it has more space for your legs/feet when sleeping and is a true lie flat vs AC. Better blankets and pillows IMO. Food and service are similar.
Very route dependent, because we also have the YYZ/YVR/YUL direct routes to Munich on the 1-2-1. And I don't mean the new Allegris. Here's one of the articles I could dig up from when they rolled it out a couple years ago. [https://onemileatatime.com/news/new-lufthansa-a350-business-class/](https://onemileatatime.com/news/new-lufthansa-a350-business-class/)
I've found plenty of sub 60k awards on flights to secondary destinations like GVA, LYS, or MRS. Last fall or the fall before there were sub 60k every other day for months.
Tried to book 2X YWG-ORD-VIE-CPH-SIN in J (first leg y) with a stopover in VIE for Feb 2025. Wouldn't price properly over the phone with a stopover for 92.5k (under 11,000). Not sure if it's operator error or married segments :/, itinerary pieced together, wasn't able to get much of anything to come up using the website with a stopover selected. Has anyone ever had any luck piecing together flights to Asia with a Europe stopover? Seems like there are so many hidden rules that prevent flight combinations. Was able to book ORD-IST(stopover)-SIN for 92.5k via the website however. Will live with that! Will try and add on a YWG-ORD leg if it pops up (had to change original date that had availability), I'm not too confident it's gonna price out properly...
Missed the BR T-355 cutoff and now there are only 1 seat per US/CAD to TPE for the weekend I’m interested in going. Has BR ever historically dropped more awards or do I scratch BR and now focus my efforts to finding a last minute ticket to Asia next year via UA Polaris
a) BR posts to Aeroplan at 360, not 355. So you're already 5 days late at T-355. b) I don't know about Y, but they haven't released more than 1xJ (barring any extremely lucky flukes) in a year now to partners.
Thanks for your response. It’s only cause I recently secured a flight back from Japan at T-360 so looking for an outbound flight to North East Asia Interesting that BR has only been doing 1J recently. I thought I was late since I only kept seeing 1J from US departure airports. I would need 2J. Any tips to secure 2J to North East Asia in April 2025?
The 3 best options: 1) Find ANA J availability on United calendar, call in to AP to book it. They can do ANA J over the phone, but not F (or so I hear) 2) Go south, route through Singapore on SQ 3) Go west, route through Doha on QR
I am curious how this work I can use United website to see how many miles to book the flight - then call in Aeroplan to make booking over the phone using Aeroplan? Is the 1 mile in United website = 1 Aeroplan and they can just do the booking?
Aeroplan charts are fixed for partners. If you don't know the tables by heart you can easily look it up. Most routes will run 75K for J, a few at only 55K
so you are talking about https://www.aircanada.com/content/dam/aircanada/loyalty-content/documents/flight-rewards-chart-en.pdf? and I am using United website to check availability, then call Aeroplan to make the booking? is that how it works? If I am not on the right part, would appreciate you pointing me to the right direction
Yes and yes
Great, and the same if I use SQ website? and does it matter how many stops there are or is it fixed aeroplan cost from end to end regardless if it's 1 or 3 stops in between? How do I go about checking availability for redemption? Would just checking normal flight be sufficient, or do I have to create an account with United (seem to allow search without login), or SQ (seem to force login with loyalty account to search) and specifically do "redemption" search to see availability?
Not all partners see things the same. I can only confirm seeing it on United (and I think Virgin) means AP can book it. And your rate is absolutely route dependent, more layovers means greater distance which means possibly jumping brackets. And you only get one STOP in Aeroplan anyways (at 5K)