Airlines

Best way to cancel an Iberia Avios booking

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Cancel an Iberia Avios booking

Iberia Avios can be one of the best ways to get yourself to Europe in business class roundtrip with rates starting at just 68k Avios. Yes, that’s roundtrip out of the east coast into Europe. For rates that low I’m certainly willing to endure crappy tech, poor user interfaces, and often times less than optimal search results.

In the past year I’ve had to cancel multiple trips booked with Iberia Avios and I thought my frustrating experience could be helpful to those of you who may need to do the same.

Iberia doesn’t have the IT setup to perform these tasks online and you’ll need to phone a rep, and lemme tell you, it can be very frustrating.

a stuffed animal on a chair

Multiple Cancellations

I’ve spent hours calling primarily three different phone numbers. One of the issues with Iberia is the varying expertise of the customer service agents.  On bookings involving partners I’ve been told to call the operating airline, that those tickets can’t be canceled at all, and then reps that actually know what they’re doing, but the call drops and I’ve left hanging.

Yes, you can cancel flights, the fee should be $40

  • 1-800-772-4642
    • The first Iberia Avios cancellation ( on Iberia )
      • This is the main Iberia help line
    •  The Second Iberia Avios cancellation ( on British Airways )
      • Sadly, it was infuriating inept when I tried to cancel my second ticket and would end the call after a 5 minute hold
      • Once I finally got someone on the line after 15+ attempts they told me they couldn’t perform the task at hand and I’d need to phone Iberia Avios directly – this wasn’t the case with the rep a week ago, but thinking of hanging up and calling 15 times again made me want to dig a hole and jump in it.
    • The 3,4,5 ( on British Airways )
      • Inept reps that gave me wrong information
  • +44 203 6843 774
      • I was in the UK when attempting to cancel a flight out of the UK I thought this number would help. Sadly, no one ever picked up after a dozen or so tries and I gave up.

The best phone number for canceling an Iberia Avios Booking: The Spanish Iberia Avios line

  • +34 917 7426 07
    • This is the Spanish Iberia Plus phone number and when I phoned it via Skype during normal business hours and someone picked up within a couple minutes each time. I was disconnected once and had to retry, but I was tended to quickly and my flight was canceled efficiently.

How long do Iberia Avios take to repopulate into your account?

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, Iberia doesn’t have an automated system and they refunds are processed by a back office. This means you should plan on at least 72 hours and be happy if it’s faster. If it takes more than a week, I’d be concerned, but otherwise, be patient and they’ll eventually populate as well as your credit card refund.

Luckily, on 2 separate occasions the points were back within hours..

a screenshot of a black screen

To Recap – what’s the best way to cancel an Iberia Avios ticket?

I’d cut to the chase, fire up Skype, and call the Spanish Iberia Avios number: +34 917 7426 07 – it that fails… skip the UK number and keep calling the US number until you get a competent rep.

 

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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7 Comments

  • Jason July 24, 2023

    Just want to hop on here real fast to offer a dp. I read a lot about this cancellation and I appreciate this post and comments, and those on FT. I ultimately decided to take the plunge and cancelled my award booking, all on IB VIE–>MAD–>JFK. 2 separate bookings. I got a cancellation processing number when I called the Spanish Avios number, got right through. Then I emailed the email address I found on FT. I have no idea if that helped or not, as the social media sites are all bots now. I did this on a Sunday, and am in southern Europe currently. I explained the issue and reuested that it be expedited to at least return the avios immediately so I could book another flight. I was told 7-10 business days on the phone when I cancelled (ouch!). I called the very next day, Spain number and asked if it could be expedited, giving my cancellation code, and they said it should be done by today/tomorrow. Within about 3 hrs, my avios were returned, got a similar screenshot to above, and my wife got one on her account 1-2hrs later. I had sent the email again from her email address. Turn out it was the CEO of Iberia….and they sent me the email below:

    Dear Mr. *******:
    We acknowledge receipt of your email sent to our CEO, and we are currently looking into your case. We will contact you again as soon as we have a resolution to your case.

    Sincerely,

    Iberia Customer Center.

    Here is the email address I used. I have no idea what helped, but this was done in less than 24hrs. Hope this helps someone else. Let’s see what happens with the charge back to the credit card for taxes and fees.

    rpmucac@iberia.es

  • Ed Baronne May 10, 2023

    Maybe I have just been lucky, but I have cancelled two business flights with Iberia by phone over the last couple of months and have not had to wait more than 2 minutes each time on hold. The cancellation process is a little slow but effective with my refunds to Iberia Plus taking a couple days and credit card a couple weeks.

    I have been booking the cheap business flights and cancelling when I can find a similar deal on a better airlines.

  • Joremero March 22, 2023

    hi, i know this is old and all, but trying to find an answer for this….
    have you only canceled BA and IB flights?

    I’m trying to cancel a AA flight booked with Iberia, but not sure it is actually cancelable…and I’m not able to get through using that phone number provided or another one I was given by Iberia on twitter

    • Miles March 22, 2023

      yes, you should be able to cancel any Iberia booking not just BA or IB… those numbers should work, just keep trying, or try early morning Europe time, around 9am Madrid time.

  • Sonny February 3, 2022

    How did the handle the fees? Refunded or voucher? I have a summer biz round trip booked and not sure if I will travel for obvious reasons C-19 and was curious regarding the fees if refund is needed. Thanks

  • khatl February 3, 2022

    Totally agree. The Spanish number is by far the easiest and fastest way to do it. And the agents are quick and knowledgeable. It was still infuriating a few times when they are busy that they simply cut you off after a few minutes on hold. I simply don’t understand why, when they are part of the same company as BA, that they and Aer Lingus are not sharing BA’s technology. Similar to how Virgin and Delta do so. Iberia could simply use BA’s technology and simply rebrand it for Iberia. Would also be significantly more cost-effective long term.

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