Reader Question: How To Recover Avios From Cancelled Iberia Award?

A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us a hellish Iberia award cancellation case in which the airline claims that the reader forfeited 85,500 Avios + 232 euros. Readers are encouraged to send us questions, comments, or opinions by email, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We’ll cover them here several times a week. […]

Mar 28, 2025 - 20:08

A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us a hellish Iberia award cancellation case in which the airline claims that the reader forfeited 85,500 Avios + 232 euros.

Readers are encouraged to send us questions, comments, or opinions by email, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We’ll cover them here several times a week.

You can access Iberia here.

Reader’s Message:

I feel to report the miserable conditions of the IBERIA Hotline in Germany located in Frankfurt.
I am Emerald (Platinum) at Qatar Airways. I booked 2 award tickets. One with QR from Doha to Miami in December last Year and another one from Panama back to Doha issued by Iberia in October 2024 .
Both award tickets were pretty reasonable priced where the QR flight was about 65000 AVIOS, Iberia charged 85,500 Avios plus 238.08 Euro as seen below:

On the 9th of Feb 2025, I called their IBERIA German Hotline when I was in Germany to visit my mother. I wanted to cancel my flights in favour to visit my mother in May again. On their recored line I was told I am able to cancel the flight with a refund of 85,500 Avios and 232.08 Euro by paying a fee of EUR 25. I agreed and they collected the fees at the same call by my credit card.
In good faith I cancelled after the IBERIA flight my QR flight from Doha to Miami and my refund was within less than 24 hours. Consequently, I booked a flight from DXB to Munich on the 15th of May 2025 after receiving my refund from QR.
After 2 weeks on the 17th of Feb, if I am not mistaken, I reminded the German IBERIA Hotline in Frankfurt about my refund credit note from my flight that I cancelled on the 9th of Feb. My flight was also not online anymore listed. When I wanted to see the details the message popped up the flight is not existing. The woman on the hotline checked and informed me that my cancellation is under process and I should be patient from some time. I agreed.
On the 4th of March I contacted Iberia in Frankfurt again while I was in Serbia. The German hotline told me out of the sudden my AVIOS are forfeited. I couldn’t believe it. I informed them that his colleague told my I can receive a refund therefore I cancelled all associated bookings. I was scared to loose 85,500 AVIOS and told Mrs Serrer to recover the flight. The next the flight was online again, But after a while it was not shown. A complete mess.
On the 5th of March I contacted 4 times the hotline again to explain the situation and to ask for a refund. I was promised to get a direct response from IBERIA either by email or call. Never happened. One Staff I was not able to verify myself because her German was not enough to developed to know the German word for “document” number. I asked what kind of document number she was not cable to find a synonym for her Spanish word “document number”. So she stopped my inquiry due to the lack of verifying myself. Later I found out she asked for the Passport number. I should expect that a German hotline of an airline should know the word passport number alternatively to her Spanish word.
Two other guys from the same hotline hang up and one was disconnected for some reason
I tried to complain which is extremely hard to find on their IBERIA website. I made a kind of rebooking request in the end as I was not able to to find anything else more suitable to my complaint. Their reply below:

I wrote some more emails to ask the number of their specialist but no reply at all.
Today, I called the English speaking Iberia Hotline based in Frankfurt to discuss my matter again. After disconnected the first time while I was on hold I called again. Another college informed me she will do her best to get refunded but not the AVIOS only the 25 euro and apologised for her colleague’s mistake. No good faith no in favour of the doubt, nothing. The only thing she added I am not even able to change the flight.
I am not willing to support this robbery. The staff of Iberia made a mistake, so it’s fair enough to bear the consequences. What is if I come up with an attest issued from a doctor?

What an ordeal with Iberia! It is unfortunate, but you cannot expect anything else from an IAG-owned airline, and this is somewhat similar to what I experienced with them during the pandemic.

It is difficult to believe that this award ticket from Panama to Doha via Madrid would be nonrefundable. Even if it had been, the first agent didn’t convey this to the reader and told them that they needed to cover only this fee to have it processed.

What can the reader do?

That is a good question.

Iberia is one of the worst airlines to deal with when it comes to complaints, and it is unclear exactly where the reader lives.

The only way to resolve this issue is to sue Iberia in a European court or where the reader lives.

The value of 85,500 Avios is 1823.03 euros + the taxes/fees of 232.08. The total claim value would be 2055.11 euros.

There is a lawyer in Germany who specializes in airline-related claims (you can access their website here). They have occasionally commented on cases that we have covered, and the reader should contact them.

Conclusion

I had an awful experience with one Iberia award ticket during the pandemic, and it was close to impossible to find a coherent person enough to deal with the cancellation and refund, so I just let it go (it was not worth wasting too much time for 200 or so euros).

My advice is to stay away from Iberia. If you think British Airways is challenging to deal with, Iberia, which belongs to the same group, is far worse.

You might be able to resolve the issue if you live in Spain and can use the official complaint channels, but you can pretty much forget it if you need to deal with English, as I don’t think that they have anyone working in their contact center/customer service that can do anything else than waste your time.

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