Do I earn Avios and British Airways tier points if I fly with Iberia Express?

Today I want to look at whether you can earn Avios and British Airways Executive Club tier points when you fly with Iberia Express.

Iberia Express is a low-cost short-haul subsidiary of Iberia, complementing Iberia’s own short-haul flying on routes from Madrid that might not justify the more business-oriented Iberia offerings.

Since Iberia, Iberia Express and British Airways are part of the same company (International Airlines Group), it is possible to book flights on Iberia Express via ba.com.

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer regarding Avios and tier point earning rates on Iberia Express flights.

There are three ways to book an Iberia Express flight:

the first is directly with Iberia Express, which will give you an Iberia Express I2 prefixed flight number

the second is via Iberia, which codeshares on Iberia Express flights and gives you its own IB-prefixed flight number

the third is to book via British Airways via the Iberia codeshare or any BA codeshare which is in place, resulting in an IB or BA flight code

If you book an Iberia Express flight via British Airways or Iberia, and it has an IB-prefixed flight number, you will earn the standard Avios and tier points for an Iberia flight.  The same goes for any Iberia Express flights booked on ba.com which have a BA flight number.

If you book via the Iberia Express website with an I2 flight code, you cannot earn Avios or tier points in British Airways Executive Club. You CAN earn Avios if you credit the flight to an Iberia Plus frequent flyer account, and you can then use the ‘Combine My Avios’ function on ba.com to move those Avios across to your BA account.

I bet you’re glad you asked now ……

(This article is part of our ‘BA Q&A’ series which explains how British Airways Executive Club works.  You can see all of our ‘BA Q&A’ articles here. )

(Head for Points is the UK’s biggest frequent flyer website with 2.4 million monthly page views.  Want to learn more about earning and spending Avios?  Click here to read our latest news stories and click here to join the mailing list for our weekly or daily email newsletters.)

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (January 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also good bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These are available to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.