Is IberiaPlus the best way forward for BAEC members?

[vdhawan]

I’m a self-employed weekly/fortnightly LHR-EDI-LHR flyer and also take a one, maybe two long haul LHR-BOM-LHR flights a year. This pattern has normally been enough to tigger gold in the past, albeit only just. Flying mostly domestic hbo plus sometimes business during off-peak time(just retriggered Gold through April 2026).
I’m now thinking of crediting my flights to IberiaPlus with the hope of triggering Oro or even Platino if I can manage it.

So, I’ve tried to do a new booking by logging into my BA account, and selecting my Iberia plus ff# during booking. Interestingly (or perhaps as expected), I can’t select a seat without paying for it.
I’m sure there would be others in a similar situation, so looking for some help from those more knowledgeable than me if this is the right approach, and if not what would be the best way of going about this, or if not what would be the best approach to try and possibly ensure an elite status next year (accepting that in the new and unpredictable world there are no guarantees).
Many thanks in advance.

[NorthernLass]

Have a look at the current articles and threads on here, e.g.

https://www.headforpoints.com/2025/02/12/club-iberia-plus-changes/

https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/how-to-select-seats-on-iberia-ba-booking/

Also Flyertalk is a good source of info.

[Pointsmakeprizes]

I’m about to book a BA holiday for my
Family – 2 adults 2 kids. Total cost about £4,000 Is it better for me to credit this to my Iberia plus account (I’ll also set them up for my wife and kids). It’s not clear to me whether Iberia plus is better for flight + hotel bookings for both Avios and in particular tier points?

[Rob]

Pointsmakeprizes wrote:

I’m about to book a BA holiday for my
Family – 2 adults 2 kids. Total cost about £4,000 Is it better for me to credit this to my Iberia plus account (I’ll also set them up for my wife and kids). It’s not clear to me whether Iberia plus is better for flight + hotel bookings for both Avios and in particular tier points?

Do you even have the choice?

This is what happens now with BA Hols;

*the flights get a bit of code added to them which makes them illegible for tier points

*BA Holidays awards you a chunk of TP equivalent to your total spend

We don’t know what happens if you add an Iberia (or Qatar or whatever) FF number to your flight booking. Do you get 2 lots of tier points? Do you lose the BAH ones? It’s even more interesting if (and not sure if this is possible) BAH sells holidays on Emirates etc?

[NorthernLass]

There was a thread on this yesterday, the reader did manage to add his IB number via RAM, but as @Rob says, we have no idea what that means any more.

Booking via Iberia holidays allows one person to keep all the TPs, and their holidays seem a good bit cheaper than BA’s, but they do seem to be limited in terms of departure airports – I haven’t quite worked out if you always need to start in Spain!