Iberia air

[attitudeda]

Was wondering if anyone has used Iberia airlines. We are going to book a 12 night cruise out of Barcelona for next year.trying to get an idea on airfair. Or are we better off booking air with RCI. Any ideas. Thanks

[Desert Cruisers]

Go to www.airlinequality.com for passenger opinions for Iberia as well as other airlines.:)

[PoohUnderstands]

First of all, search engine Iberia Air on these threads. I have not flown them, but the people who belong to these threads do not think highly of them!!

 

Where are you departing from? I found in my search that if I wanted only one stop, and that stop being in the states, I had the choice of flying to Atlanta and taking Delta to BCN, or flying into EWR(Newark) and taking Continental to BCN. Miami does not have a direct flight for some odd reason. Their only direct flights go to Madrid and then you do a hop skip and jump flight to BCN. So I would check out Delta and Continental. In 2005 and 2006, if you wanted only one stop, the prices ranged in the $650-850 pp area. I purchased mine in November, and they were the cheapest by a long shot until just late this month when I could have gotten them for about $50 less each. Our cruise is in September. I know I wouldn't have waited this long to book so I am ok with what I paid ($750pp) this is a decent price for one stop. Two or more stops were selling in April for around $576 or so, but I just did not want more stops.

So check around and see what you can find. I picked a flight and then kept checking prices on it. Good luck and have a great cruise.

 

Oh, I would reserve the cruise line's airfare just until final payment is due. If for some reason prices went sky high you have capped your price. However, it is very unlikely that you will get good connections and time inbetween and only one stop and even seats together! So I think you can do better on your own. Also, plan to go over at least one day before departure and leave at least one day after departure if you can. Barcelona port and airport have had some unusual strikes that have caused havoc to connections ( i.e. a fisherman's strike kept the BOS from disembarking in the a.m. and they didn't dock until around 7:00 p.m.-well you know what that did to people flying out the same day!!! Then recently the Iberia groundcrew decided to strike by standing in the runways and spilling oil on the runways and setting them on fire-now that really played havoc with incoming flights for same day departure!)

 

Anything else I can help you with just ask.

 

Pooh

[attitudeda]

Thanks Pooh,

 

Thank you for all your information. Since we will be booking this cruise while onboard the GOS. I'm not crazy about booking air with RCL just because we like to fly in the day before well in this case 2 day before since all flights are over night. I didn't realize that continental offers nonstop service to Barcerlona. Since we live on Long Island and Newark is mmaybe a 20min differance then JFK. We are not crazy about flying Delta had a bad experience with them 2 years ago. You no what Delta stands for

D = Dosen't

E = Ever

L = Leave

T = The

A = Airport

 

Thanks Again

[rienreiter]

Here's my 2 cents: avoid Iberia Airlines of Spain at all costs. They are bad, bad, bad. Their airplanes are mostly older aircraft; at least from Miami (I would say 20-25 years or older). I won't even go into the customer service issue. Flight attendants are total bthices and that goes for males as well as females. I never get tired of saying this: I would rather fly longer hours or pay more for the airfare than to fly Iberia. Flying business or first class does not do anything to improve my opinion of them. They treat every passenger like crap.

 

Have had plenty of experience with them and while not all of them have been bad, the majority of them have been so negative that the positive ones don't even count.

 

Every single person that I have met on cruises where they have flown Iberia have not been pleased with their service.

[spitz]

We just returned fromt the Jewel (July 23-30th) everything went well until we were dumped off at the Barcelona airport with 100,000 others. On Fri (jul 29th) Iberia had a wildcat strike leaving the airport packed with gazillions of people. We were in line at 6am for our 9:30 flt and didn't reach the front of the line until 11am at which point we were told to wait in another line to have our tkts reissued. It was a nightmare...we waited in line until 4pm and could not get home until Wed! I am a travel agent and I will never book anyone on Iberia again. I would contact the air/sea department of the cruise line and pay the additional amount to secure seats on your prefferred airline..sure wish we would have.

[Lsimon]

We're going on a Med cruise in a year (Sept-07) Barcelona to Venice.

 

I'm hoping to get AA Frequent Flyer tickets when they come on line in a few weeks - hopefully first or business class. It appears that the AA flights are on Iberia to Madrid the connection to Barcelona - all in Iberia.

 

I see the negative comments here on Iberia which have me a bit concerned. Any comments or suggestions?

 

Looks like AA also books on BA, and I can book a paid BA fare through American, but something in their fine print says that you can't use their frequent flyer tickets on a flight from North America to Europe on BA.

 

We're pushing a bit to take this cruise in the first place, and I'm really hoping to get the FF tickets for economic reasons. We've been saving miles for some time now.

[Desert Cruisers]

Good luck getting two first or business class seats using miles. All of the airlines are incredibly stingy. I have Platinum AAdvantage status and find it difficult to get flights. Try to be flexible re dates going and returning. Also, be prepared for nonstop itineraries including flying from Chicago to Dallas or JFK to connect to Europe. You might also be routed on American to London and connecting there on British Airways to Barcelona.

 

You are correct regarding British Airways. American frequent flyer miles can't be redeemed for "over the pond" flights on British Airways.

 

Good luck and bon voyage.:)

[A.J.]

Hi,

Haven't hear one good thing concerning Iberia, we are flying to Barcelona in June 07 for our 12 day cruise and found USAIRWAYS to have the best price. We are flying out of West Palm Beach to Philadelphia to Barcelona and reverse coming back. We booked USAIRWAYS in August only to find their price went down in Sept. so I called them and recieved a travel voucher for the difference. Not knowing where you are flying from but USAIRWAYS has one stop to Phila. then direct to Barcelona all with good flying times.

PS: Try looking at Kayak.com for air fares.

[randlandk]

Might want to read this thread....

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=410674

[Globaliser]

Might want to read this thread....

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=410674

Before anyone gets too hung up about that, it's a glitch that could happen on any airline. I've heard of it happening on BA, for example.

[greatam]

We're going on a Med cruise in a year (Sept-07) Barcelona to Venice.

 

I'm hoping to get AA Frequent Flyer tickets when they come on line in a few weeks - hopefully first or business class. It appears that the AA flights are on Iberia to Madrid the connection to Barcelona - all in Iberia.

 

I see the negative comments here on Iberia which have me a bit concerned. Any comments or suggestions?

 

Looks like AA also books on BA, and I can book a paid BA fare through American, but something in their fine print says that you can't use their frequent flyer tickets on a flight from North America to Europe on BA.

 

We're pushing a bit to take this cruise in the first place, and I'm really hoping to get the FF tickets for economic reasons. We've been saving miles for some time now.

 

As a very loyal AA flyer, I hope I can give you some hints so you can get the tickets. DO NOT and I REPEAT DO NOT depend entirely on AA.com award ticket booking (and you cannot use AA's website to book a partner award anyhow-only all AA tickets). Even though the website feature is supposed to show all award tickets available for a given route, it doesn't a lot of times (the South America and Japan routes specifically).

 

Since you are able to fly out of ORD, you have a lot of options. ORD/LON/BCN, ORD/JFK/LON/BCN, or even ORD/DFW/LON/BCN. All big AA hubs (except BCN) with generally lots of availability. You will have to book a partner award, not strictly an AA award, as AA does not fly to BCN or Venice. 90,000 business, 125,000 FC.

 

Please plan on paper 3 or four trips before you even make that phone call.

 

Start with this website: http://www.itasoftware.com/

Use the multi segment feature-your preferred dates. When the whole list for every airline comes up, click AA and look at the flights. When you find three or four that MAY work for you, go to this website. https://www.expertflyer.com/

 

You will have to pay for a subscription and make sure you subscribe to PREMIUM service (I think it is $9.95 per mo-make sure you cancel or it will automatically bill your credit card every month).

 

Input AA for airline. In the box that says "class code", you are looking for U (business) or Z (FC). Click connecting flight-LON. After you click on search, you will have to see if your chosen flights have availability in those fare classes. Please be aware that BA often does not have Z or U availability for

AA miles on the short haul. But what you are really looking for is U or Z over the pond (the long haul). You can sit in coach for the short flight to BCN. Otherwise, you may never get tickets. If nothing is available, you will have to start over, with different flights, different days, different connections.

 

Here is a screen print of what you will see on Expertflyer inputting data per above. Outound-ORD/LHR/BCN

AA 86

 

0

ORD

12/31/06 05:15 PM LHR

01/01/07 06:50 AM 777 DB U6

 

BA 484

 

0

LHR

01/01/07 09:20 AM BCN

01/01/07 12:25 PM 320

M J3 C2 D2 I1 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 R9 V9 N9 L9 S9 Q9

1 Connections

 

 

What this means-AA flight #86, 777 service to London Heathrow nonstop from Chicago, Dinner and Breakfast, 6 seats available for business class awards TO LONDON. There is no award availability on BA# 484 flight to BCN. However, AA agents (you have to pay for the phone call) can sometimes find availability on the BA flights. Iberia uses the same Z and U codes for award travel. Worst case scenario, you may have to fly the short hop on Iberia.

 

Now that I have thoroughly confused you, if you need further help, just ask. I have never had this method fail to get award tickets. I book some very complicated itineraries using my miles. May have to leave a day earlier or later or take the red eye instead of the day flight, but this methods works every time for me.

[Globaliser]

There is no award availability on BA# 484 flight to BCN. However, AA agents (you have to pay for the phone call) can sometimes find availability on the BA flights.

I know this is a very technical discussion, but that display doesn't mean that. AFAIK, BA doesn't show U (or other award booking classes) on any public GDS. So "J3 C2 D2 I1 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 R9 V9 N9 L9 S9 Q9" tells you nothing about award availability, one way or the other - all you can see is revenue booking classes.

 

In fact, BA484 on 1 January is currently showing U1. If you need U2, BA478 and BA480 have that on that day. (Accessed by logging into my BAEC account and searching for award availability.)

[Globaliser]

Double post, sorry.

[greatam]

I know this is a very technical discussion, but that display doesn't mean that. AFAIK, BA doesn't show U (or other award booking classes) on any public GDS. So "J3 C2 D2 I1 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 R9 V9 N9 L9 S9 Q9" tells you nothing about award availability, one way or the other - all you can see is revenue booking classes.

 

In fact, BA484 on 1 January is currently showing U1. If you need U2, BA478 and BA480 have that on that day. (Accessed by logging into my BAEC account and searching for award availability.)

 

Thanks for that information. I had no idea BA was different. I just figured there were no seats available for AA miles (kind of like Qantas). You can certainly see availability on LAN, Cathay and other OneWorld carriers. No wonder the AA agents can see availability but I can never find it. Good thing to know-thanks again.

 

Since you can log in on BAEC and see availability, is that "look in" only for UK fliers? I can't see it when I log into my BA account.

 

We're going to totally confuse a lot of people with this discussion. Oh well-maybe we have helped some also.

[BobbiOh]

I know this is a very technical discussion, but that display doesn't mean that. AFAIK, BA doesn't show U (or other award booking classes) on any public GDS. So "J3 C2 D2 I1 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 R9 V9 N9 L9 S9 Q9" tells you nothing about award availability, one way or the other - all you can see is revenue booking classes.

 

We can see award travel seats if we specifically request that class of service....here's the but....we sometimes have difficulty seeing the inventory based on the combination of the GDS system and the carrier. So, there are ways for a travel agent to see that inventory, you just have to know what the category is and how to request it. That said, even if we can see it, we can't book it in the GDS. It has to go through the airline.

[Globaliser]

Since you can log in on BAEC and see availability, is that "look in" only for UK fliers? I can't see it when I log into my BA account.

I may have inadvertently been misleading. There's no display that corresponds to a GDS display. You can get the information by dummy booking different numbers of seats to see how many U there are on each flight, which is what I did.

[Lsimon]

greatam: Thanks for the hints - not sue I understand everything right off but I'll look into it and see what I can figure out ahead of time.

 

What would be the timing of this? I presume it can't be done until the flights are already available, within the 329 day window? Have you found that AA will let you hold an outgoing award booking while waiting for the return leg to become available.

 

I'll need to work with an AA agent on phone in any event since I need to fly into Barcelona and return from Venice. I believe AA.com only allows award booking of round trip flights between a single pair of cities. It's been a few years since I tried to use award miles for a trip that is "hard to get", but my experience with phone agents was mixed. Some would say "No", end of story off the phone in 2 minuites and some were extremely helpful and would work for a long time to find/construct a flight with different alternatives. I hope I'm fortunate to get connected to one of the later.

 

Sounds like some of you offering help are travel agents. Years ago I recall travel agents could book Award travel, although they didn't get a commission on this. This recollection extends back before the days of internet booking and E-tickets, and before airlines cut agents commissions. Can agents still do awards reservations on their systems, or is this also a thing of the past. It's been so long since I booked air through an agent, I didn't even think to ask my TA (for cruise) if they could do this.

[greatam]

greatam: Thanks for the hints - not sue I understand everything right off but I'll look into it and see what I can figure out ahead of time.

 

What would be the timing of this? I presume it can't be done until the flights are already available, within the 329 day window? Have you found that AA will let you hold an outgoing award booking while waiting for the return leg to become available.

 

I'll need to work with an AA agent on phone in any event since I need to fly into Barcelona and return from Venice. I believe AA.com only allows award booking of round trip flights between a single pair of cities. It's been a few years since I tried to use award miles for a trip that is "hard to get", but my experience with phone agents was mixed. Some would say "No", end of story off the phone in 2 minuites and some were extremely helpful and would work for a long time to find/construct a flight with different alternatives. I hope I'm fortunate to get connected to one of the later.

 

Sounds like some of you offering help are travel agents. Years ago I recall travel agents could book Award travel, although they didn't get a commission on this. This recollection extends back before the days of internet booking and E-tickets, and before airlines cut agents commissions. Can agents still do awards reservations on their systems, or is this also a thing of the past. It's been so long since I booked air through an agent, I didn't even think to ask my TA (for cruise) if they could do this.

 

 

If you want someone to plan and book the trip for you, this service is reportedly pretty good. Never used them, as I find half the fun is finding that elusive ticket to Kathmandu or some other exotic place (yes, you can get a Thai Airways FF ticket from Bangkok to Kathmandu and AA now flies to India.)

 

http://www.awardplanner.com/

 

Otherwise, plan 3/4 itineraries as I suggested, sign up for expertflyer.com to check availability, and then make your call (YOU have to call-the only FF tickets you can book at AA.com are tickets which only have AA flights). If you don't like the answer you get the first time, politely say 'thank you, I'll think about it' and keep calling back. Sooner or later, you will get someone who really knows their stuff and is willing to help. Good luck.

[Capsu78]

Lsimon,

Greetings... from Hawthorn Woods!

I used my AA FF miles to get to the Carnival Liberty in Rome 2 weeks ago. I echo that I found a great AA rep who spent over a half hour on the phone coming up with workable flights. I booked back in April for "high season" travel. She even spotted a way for us to spend 28 hours in Paris on the way back home, a bonus "port of call".

I did get routed on Iberia to Madrid via JFK on the way out, then Madrid to Rome. Iberia did feel like an airline with "issues", but then again I have been on plenty of United and Continental flights I felt the same way about. The very worst thing I can say is the economy class seat was perfectly uncomfortable in nearly every position as I tried to take a nap on the overnight flight! Other than that, they met my minimum expectations of departing / arriving on time, not making any unscheduled stops, and pushing out all of our baggage at the other end.

I give them a strong C for their effort.

[Lsimon]

Thanks to everyone. We've got tickets to London & back. We're visiting friends in the UK and then flying with them on a discount europe airline to Barcelona for the cruise. When I called to make the return reservation I had my eye on a AA flight, listed with their paid flights, that uses a BA flight from Venice to London to connect with an AA flight back to Chicago.

 

They gave me the AA flight but indicated they didn't have any availability for the BA flight that day. Looks like I might have to buy that segment, which is pricy ($315) but still not a bad deal for the ticket.

 

Does anyone have any ideas on how to track, or get, the BA flight other than periodically checking with American AAdvantage reservation desk? Or is it unlikely the BA flight will come available at all? Any other advice?

[Globaliser]

They gave me the AA flight but indicated they didn't have any availability for the BA flight that day. Looks like I might have to buy that segment, which is pricy ($315) but still not a bad deal for the ticket.

 

Does anyone have any ideas on how to track, or get, the BA flight other than periodically checking with American AAdvantage reservation desk?

On the assumption that you're wanting the 1125 flight from Venice to London Gatwick on 23 September 2007, you can get that straight from BA for €201.89 (about USD 258.47) including tax. I've tried but found that you can't do it for less by buying a cheapie return ticket and throwing the second half away.

 

Unfortunately, it is going to be expensive because Sunday is the most expensive day of the week for flying from Venice to London. On other days, you can do it for as little as €19 + tax one way.

 

I assume that you're aware that the British Airways flights from Venice to London goes to Gatwick? That's doesn't make it very easy to connect to a Heathrow-Chicago flight on AA. If you want to fly non-stop from Venice to Heathrow, you need the bmi flight. If you're going to pay cash for the ticket, you might do well by trying that instead, as it would save you a lot of hassle.