How to fly Transatlantic Iberia Business Class to Madrid for 34,000 miles!

The Main Details

Routes: JFK-MAD, or BOS-MAD, or ORD-MAD (nonstop only, flights with layovers won’t work for this)

Cost: 34,000 miles + ~$120 in taxes and fees

Dates: Off-peak dates on the Iberia calendar, linked below.

Understanding Iberia’s Award Chart

Iberia uses an off-peak and peak calendar for its award flights, as well as a distance-based chart, which is below:

You’ll find that from Madrid, cities like Boston, NYC, and Chicago fit into category 5 on the off-peak chart (3,001-4,000 miles away from Madrid). Category 5 off-peak business is 34000 miles, and off-peak economy is 17,000 miles!

How to book this Flight

This flight can be booked through either Iberia’s or British Airways’ site! Steps for both ways are below.

Step 1: Create an account with Iberia or British Airways if you do not already have one.

Step 2: Search for Award Availability

So you log into Iberia’s site and search for flights like below, with your own airport, etc. Keep in mind that you need to check the “Pay with Avios” box for this. The toggle with “Lowest fare” can also be changed to “Premium cabins”, although it hasn’t affected the search results when I do that.

For example, when I search for Jan 21st, 2025 (random date I picked from my head), I see:

Clicking on that business flight at 20:55 shows:

If you don’t have the full 34,000 miles in the account, there is the option to pay less Avios and more in taxes & fees to offset that. I don’t use that option personally, but it is there if you need it!

Or you can look on British Airways’ site, which looks like:

One note is that you can find award availability for this on any Oneworld partner (American Airlines is a helpful one usually)

📢 Important: Always find award availability first before the next step, which is transferring points. Why? Because once you transfer points to an airline, you can’t get them back!

Step 3: Transfer your Points

34,000 miles is required for this booking, meaning either 34,000 Chase UR points, Amex MR points, Capital One miles, or any combination of them that adds up to 34,000! Transfer from the bank of your choice to British Airways or Iberia!

Note that I’d recommend transferring to British Airways, as the points will show in British Airways instantly for all transfers, whereas transfers to Iberia (especially from Amex to Iberia) can take over a day.

Transferring from Chase:

First, go to the Ultimate Rewards page for your card (Sapphire Preferred, Reserve, or Ink Preferred, or even the JPMorgan Reserve). Then on the top of the screen, you should see the below:

As the circle indicates, click on “Transfer points to partners”. From there, click the airline partner (British Airways or Iberia), then click “Transfer Points”.

At this point, you’ll put in your airline member number (that’s where the points will transfer to), as well as the amount of points being transferred (34,000 in this case). Chase transfers to British Airways and Iberia should happen instantly.

Transferring from Amex:

Go to “Rewards & Benefits” on the top of the page, shown in the image below:

Then, go to “Earn and Redeem” and then “Transfer Points”, also as shown in the below image:

From there, find the airline (For Amex, only British Airways in this case! Amex transfers to Iberia take needlessly longer), and follow the instructions.

Transferring from Capital One:

Go to Travel, found below where your miles are displayed, and then find “Convert rewards”. From there, find the airline (British Airways only), and then follow the instructions.

Transferring from Bilt:

I don’t have a Bilt card, so I don’t know how this works, but I imagine that after you log in, you go to Travel, then “Transfer”.

Step 4: Book the flight!

Go to where you transferred the points, and then search for the flight again and make the booking!

Hope that all Made Sense!

Let me know if there are any questions.

P.S. Check out my Transfer Partner Tierlist below!