Bad news or good news: it all depends on how you look at it.
American Airlines now lets you book awards on oneworld partner Iberia online. That’s great news for those who never knew Iberia existed, but bad news for those who were in the know and able to take advantage of space not easily available to most other members.
Search on aa.com for award space now and you will see both Iberia and Iberia Express flights. There seem to be some errors at this point in booking some of the Iberia space, but I expect that will be patched up shortly.
Note that Iberia longhaul space seems to come and go in spurts. We are currently in a season of famine, but the rain always comes and sooner or later we will see a dump of both economy and business class award space.
I just flew Iberia the week before last and aside from the photo incident had two very commendable flights. Iberia is also a great AA partner because fuel surcharges are quite limited, unlike on British Airways.
CONCLUSION
Look, in running Award Expert I have a vested interested in airlines making award bookings as difficult as possible. I admit that. But I’d also rather write a post about how to book Iberia over the phone than writing, as I do now, that the floodgates are open. Space will dry up.
(H/T: One Mile at a Time)
Matthew, a bit beside the point here, but: what have you heard from your clients (if any) that you’ve booked into J on an Iberia A330/340 short-haul route? I spent some miles to put my mother and father in law on an A330 MAD-TLV (so, 4 hours in the air). By their account, nothing like your LAX flight. They complained that food was served all at once on a plastic tray and was awful, with little attention from attendants otherwise.
Iberia was a secret weapon for award bookings – bad day today indeed.
@Brandon, food is indeed served on a plastic tray with all courses at once, but it is good food and the presentation isn’t too bad. I wrote a bit about my LHR-MAD flight from the same trip, which was operated by an A340. IFE was also turned on and wi-fi functional.
http://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2017/05/31/steak-dinner-iberia-london-madrid/
Are you sure about this? I’ve searched 10 or 12 routes on several days and cannot see a single Iberia flight anywhere, even intra-Europe.
Glitch? Beta?
They seem to be having a lot of issues at this point and have pulled it back, though just on a temporary basis. It will return shortly.