Now Live: Iberia Overhauls Its Loyalty Program, Makes Elite Status Harder To Reach

Updated: April 1, 2025, 12:16pm CDT

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Table of Contents

Changes to Iberia Plus From April 1, 2025
Iberia’s New Elite Levels
Final Thoughts

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A major airline loyalty program has made big changes, making it harder for most flyers to earn elite status. Spanish airline Iberia has overhauled its Iberia Plus program and introduced new, and in some cases very aggressive, spending thresholds to reach elite status.

Let’s look at what’s changed.

Changes to Iberia Plus From April 1, 2025

Iberia has made huge changes to its loyalty program and status earning, which are sure to encounter backlash from frequent flyers.

Iberia planes — Image Credit: Lori Zaino

In introducing the changes, Iberia is following the lead of its sister airline, British Airways, which introduced major changes recently before partially backtracking. Both are owned by International Airlines Group (IAG), are members of the Oneworld alliance, and use Avios as their loyalty currency.

As of April 1, the loyalty program has been rebranded from Iberia Plus to Club Iberia Plus, Iberia announced.

Under the new system, flyers earn 1 Elite Point for every 1€ spent with Iberia and its subsidiaries, Iberia Regional and Iberia Express. This applies to airfare and extras like additional luggage and seat selection.

Elite status will be earned based on the number of segments flown or on the number of Elite Points earned, with 1€ spent equaling 1 Elite Point, minus taxes and fees. This eliminates distance flown as a metric for elite status, as we are noticing with many loyalty programs, which now reward consumers for the amount of money spent on the airline (or, in the case of U.S. carriers, money spent on their co-branded credit cards).

Spending on more than 90 brands (including hotels, shopping, and fine dining) will also earn Elite Points. For every 10 Avios collected from spending with partners, members will earn 1 Elite Point. No Elite Points will be earned for transactions earning fewer than 10 Avios.

Iberia A350 business class cabin — Business class on an Iberia Airbus A350. Image Credit: Daniel Ross

Earning of Elite Points from spending with associated brands is limited to 30% of the Elite Points needed to reach or renew each elite level.

Iberia’s New Elite Levels

One of the more complicated aspects of the program overhaul is that the new Club Iberia Plus now has 7 levels of membership. Besides the basic entry level, there are 6 levels of elite status tiers, including a new one called Platino Prime.

Here are the new elite status levels and requirements for each:

Club Iberia Plus Plata (translating to Oneworld Ruby in the Oneworld alliance) requires 3,500 Elite Points or 20 segments
Club Iberia Plus Oro (Oneworld Sapphire) requires 7,500 Elite Points or 40 segments
Club Iberia Plus Platino (Oneworld Emerald) requires 20,000 Elite Points or 90 segments
Club Iberia Plus Platino Prime (Oneworld Emerald) requires 30,000 Elite Points and lasts 2 years
Club Iberia Plus Infinita (Oneworld Emerald) requires 400,000 Elite Points and is a lifetime status
Club Iberia Plus Infinita Prime (Oneworld Emerald) requires 640,000 Elite Points and is also lifetime

At the bottom, people who qualify on segments (rather than spending) should find earning the first 2 levels of elite status easier under the new system. For others, it will be much harder.

For example, becoming Club Iberia Plus Oro required 2,250 Elite Points or 50 flights under the old system. As of April 1, only 40 segments will be needed. However, the spending requirement has more than tripled to 7,500 Elite Points.

Qualifying to reach top-tier elite status will be harder, except for a factor newly introduced with this overhaul: extra Elite points.

For example, Platino now requires 20,000 Elite Points instead of 6,250. That’s more than 3x the previously required amount of Elite Points needed. However, flyers now earn extra Elite Points for each Iberia flight, depending on the class of service and the length of the flight. The extra points earned vary widely, from 75 for a short-haul flight in economy class with the lowest fare to 600 for a long-haul flight in business with a flexible fare.

Factoring in elite points may actually make reaching status easier in some cases.

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Flight Length	Cabin	Optima	Confort	Flexible
Short- and medium-haul (up to 3,000 miles)	Economy	75	125	150
Short- and medium-haul (up to 3,000 miles)	Business	175	250	275
Long-haul (3,000 miles or more)	Economy	150	225	250
	Premium economy	275	300	325
	Business	350	450	500
	Business to Latin America	450	550	600

This could help make Iberia’s new elite status levels attractive for disgruntled British Airways flyers, given that British does not offer those extra elite points.

Bottom Line:

Iberia’s overhaul has significantly increased the difficulty of qualifying for elite status in most cases. However, flyers loyal to the Oneworld alliance who might be put off by the new, harsher British Airways status requirements could turn to Iberia to obtain status more easily. In some cases, this might be a winning strategy.

Final Thoughts

Earning elite status based on spending (rather than distance flown) is fast becoming the norm among frequent-flyer programs. Now, some programs are raising the spending levels required to hit elite status. Iberia is the latest airline to overhaul its loyalty program to make reaching elite levels more expensive.

While the changes may be valuable for some flyers previously loyal to British Airways, the Iberia overhaul is generally tough news for most.