Wow, people love to get attention for their blogs and sometimes not with the best intentions. Yesterday, Live from a Lounge posted a heck of a clickbaity article titled “Iberia backing out on the 90000 Avios promotion?”
TL;DR – no they aren’t. At least not now. That blog post simply said that people that created new accounts for the promotion have had their accounts temporarily locked.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here are links to what I wrote about the promo as it happened:
Crazy! 9,000 Bonus Avios per Iberia flight (up to 90,000 Avios)
Yes, I booked 10 Iberia flights to get 90,000 Avios (!)
While many have been locked without good reason while they investigate, many of these accounts also were trying to game the system. Mainly in one of two ways: 1) By trying to participate even though they weren’t in an eligible country (determined by having a landing page for the promo in your country, in essence) and 2) by creating multiple accounts for dogs, cats, etc to take advantage of the promotion (which was already too generous!).
If you have had your account locked and it was created genuinely, for yourself, and you live in an eligible country, simply get in touch with Iberia to sort it. They may ask for documentation to verify your identity. That’s reasonable!
Gib at GSTP posted today that he spoke with Iberia management directly who confirmed that the promo is set to be honored in the coming days. I myself have an existing Iberia account and all 10 of my bookings are there in tact, as you can see.
In short, I do think the promo got a bit away from Iberia, but, at present, they seem only to be trying to avoid paying out the Avios to those who aren’t eligible. And that’s a GOOD THING for those that played by the rules. They said we could book 10 and confirmed we didn’t have to even fly them. So it was fine to book for yourself and/or have someone else book – but it was not OK to create fake accounts to get even more.
Remember, the sport of miles and points is a marathon, not a sprint – and if we all avoid the urge to try to further game a system that has plenty of ways to maximize it without breaking T&Cs, then we will all have more promos to avail ourselves of in the future.
Having any issues aside from impatience? Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
New to all of this? My new “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available now.
