Iberia

✅ Trip Verified | I tried to travel from Madrid to Hamburg with a valid ticket that I had purchased and paid 2 months ago in combination with some Iberia miles. When I got to the airport 3 hour early, I was not allowed to check-in as I could not present the credit card I had paid the ticket with. My card expired last month and since I had already paid for the ticket and obviously I got rid off the old card. The man working at the ticket office at Iberia at Madrid airport was extremely rude and did not give a damn about helping me: I presented my email ticket showing proof of my purchase with my name on it. That was not enough. I presented to him a photo proof of my credit card proving that the card was indeed mine which he did not accept. I showed him the credit card bill with the Iberia charge showing that I had paid for the ticket and there was not fraud. He told me that I could not get on the plane and he would not even let me cancel my existing reservation and pay for the same seat on the same plane again. I was told that the Iberia flights during the next two days were fully booked up so that he could not even make me another reservation for me on another day. I went online to see if that was true and there were seats available on both days. He told me that Iberia and Iberia Plus are two different companies and that he could not help me since part of my ticket was paid with my miles. He said he had nothing to do with my ticket reservation and gave me the phone number of Iberia miles so that they could fix the problem. He would not even call on my behalf to Iberia Plus given that I am not a native Spanish speaker. At Iberia Plus on the phone I was told that they could not verify my card. (even though they had proof that I had paid with this card on previous Iberia flights). When I asked for reimbursement for my miles (I had paid a large part of this flight with my miles) I was told that the miles could not be reimbursed. I will never travel with Iberia again.

✅ Trip Verified | New York to Zagreb via Madrid. Overall, the travel experience was okay. Ground service was horrible. Cabin service was good. Food acceptable. Iberia apparently changed my seat on the connecting flight from MAD to ZAG, which I had pre-selected. By the time I looked at my boarding pass hours later and realized my seat had changed on the second flight, it was too late. Since that leg was much shorter, I didn't bother to change the seat. Boarding was chaotic, the US ground staff at JFK don't seem to care. When boarding began, a hoard of passengers stood on the business class queue. I suspected something was awry and asked people if the line they were on was for business class (as the sign clearly indicated). They shrugged and stayed on the line. As the gate agent started boarding people, he realized that practically everyone's boarding pass he scanned was NOT business class. Only then did he announce that business class passengers were being boarded first. All of a sudden, the line shrunk to 1/10 of what it was before. Once onboard, the cabin service was much better and the remainder of the trip was okay.

✅ Trip Verified | Santiago de Chile to Madrid. You can't expect much when booking a cheap fare but at least I am expecting a minimum standard of quality on every flight, no matter if I fly on a LCC or a premium airline. My first contact with the airline was at the checkin desk. I tried to purchase an upgrade but they said that it wasn't possible today. I was okay with that and went to the gate to ask if they can at least give me an empty row as the flight was very empty (I assume the load in Y was about 30-40%). The gate agent was very unsupportive and told me to search for a free seat once I'm in the plane. Eventually, after asking her a second time, I got my free row (an absolute standard request). On board, we were "welcomed" by the purser who seemed very uninterested in her job. The crew overall seemed not to like their job, except for some of the FAs (one of them was our "service FA"). They barely speak any English (or just don't want to). The procedures were very unorganized and chaotic. The seat comfort was fine but there wasn't much leg space (not much of a problem thanks to the free neighbor seat). The blanket colored my black shirt so I had to change it afterward (luckily, I had just hand luggage and some shirts with me). I lifted the armrest and there was dust and lots of dirt. I looked up the plane and it had been delivered to IB in 2010. It appears that it has not been properly cleaned ever since (see the images). The food for dinner (Lasagne) was acceptable. The drink service was okay. Breakfast was delivered in boxes and a bit small but okay. I complaint to the airline about the cleanliness by an official form at MAD as well as via FB. The ground staff at MAD was very friendly and apologized for the inconvenient situation. I received a reply from the customer relations department the day after: “To ensure the utmost hygiene on every flight, the aircraft are always cleaned immediately after arrival at destination. However, air traffic control limitations and the length of the aircraft's stopover mean that occasionally we have to do this in less time. Please accept my apologies if the seat was not in perfect condition." Fast cleaning may not include the cleaning under the armrests but it should be normal to do it at least every other month. As my connection (A320) had dirt at the same place, IB seems to be cleaning their aircraft not very well. Wifi is very overpriced (about 5$ for 4MB). In short: The ground staff (an agent on behalf of IB) in SCL was bad, the crew not good (except for some of the members), food acceptable, cleanliness disastrous.

✅ Trip Verified | Los Angeles to Milan via Madrid, returning from Rome. After reading all the negative reviews about Iberia Airlines, I drastically lowered my expectations. However, I was pleasantly surprised to have had a nice flight both going to my destination and returning home. The seats and legroom were comparable to other airlines I have flown (with the exception of Lufthansa, which has more legroom in economy). I received a packaged pillow and blanket, which was nice. The food was standard airline food and was served with premium plastic ware (not the cheap plastic utensils used with other airlines). I carried my luggage on board, and did not check it in. Overall it was a good experience.

✅ Trip Verified | Madrid to Santiago de Chile. A worn out A340-600, seats are ok (staggered configuration similar to Alitalia), but overall impact is less positive, stained seats and this ageing look. Boarding was quick and efficient, with pre-takeoff Cava served. Crew was mixed, the purser looked annoyed by passengers; FAs ranged from being very professional and attentive to absent-minded and approximate (asked twice to have more water after lunch was served, it never arrived and when I went to ask for a snack the FA said "oh, I forgot your water"; same thing for the pre-landing snak, which I had without anything to drink only because I asked for some milk in my tea). Amenity kit looks ridiculous in size, in equipment, in "look and feel"; food quite good actually but again, the whole service process took longer than expected and FAs were erratic. The seat is comfortable, maybe a bit rigid for sleeping, and cabin was freezing. A 4MB wi-fi voucher was offered to Business class passenger, it lasted some 3 minutes only on whatsapp, bought a 25MB pass for USD 19.95 with a fairly decent speed (unfortunately they forgot to mention that over Brasil and Argentina - 1/3 of the flight - the service would be unavailable). Overall quite a bland performance, hard product is still fine but service was below par.

✅ Trip Verified | Flying to Miami from Madrid Barajas Terminal S4 in September 2016. Efficient check in at Barajas. Then on to Terminal 4, where the duty free was really very good. Terminal 4 is spacious with lots of amenities. Terminal 4S does not have these shops, which makes it not that pleasant if you have to spend a lot of time there waiting for the flight. A very long line for the extra security screening needed for US destinations. Closing the time for check in there was a long line at the gate. After about 20 minutes past the time for check in there was the first announcement that there would be 15-20 minutes more before check in would start. When check in started, for some reason boarding group 3, to which we belonged, boarded last, even though our seats were not at the front or back of the aircraft. On board, cabin staff was attentive and fairly polite. The cabin was warm at first but later temperature went down and then blankets were handed out, which became useful during the evening. Overall a pleasant flight.

✅ Trip Verified | Flew Iberia from Madrid to Los Angeles. After seeing all the bad reviews I really wasn’t expecting much for my long haul flight home. I was pleasantly surprised. The airline itself was great, comfortable (as economy can be), the food was ,good the attendants were very nice. I was satisfied with the inflight entertainment. Sat in the seats I picked for my family. Received my baggage. I would fly with them again without hesitation. Now the Madrid airport is another story.

✅ Trip Verified | Madrid to Keflavik. After an otherwise wonderful holiday we arrived at Madrid airport. Their check in computers jumped to Spanish completely randomly, causing you to start all over again, until it completely crashed. There was no help to get from the Iberia staff on location and the solution was to check in manually. While waiting in line, the barriers were changed two times causing 50+ people to rearrange everything, with expected results. Almost at the end of the cue, a staff member pulls us and two other couples out of the cue, says something in Spanish and walks away. I catch up with him for explanations, and he tries to explain that he has other check in desks around the corner. We get there only to face the most unfriendly check in agent I have ever seen, who tell us that we have no checked luggage for the flight. When presented with the receipt for both flight and luggage, she claims that the receipt is invalid since it's from a third party, (Flight Network), and proceeds to charge us €70 extra. The other options would be to leave it behind, or not go on the flight we already paid for. At this point the atmosphere was not good to say the least. But a tiny plus was that she managed to assign to us seats on 3rd row. When we entered the plain we saw that this was behind the business class divider. The seats were a different color than the rest of the economy class seats, but otherwise the same shape and size so I thought nothing of it, until a stewardess came and asked us to relocate as she needed those seats for someone else. I tried to explain that we had been assigned those seats for the discomfort of the check in errors. She immediately got very unfriendly and said that we were being moved, because we had not purchased business class seats, and it was clear that we had no choice in the matter if we wanted to fly at all! She then moved the divider back one row. Throughout the flight the 3rd row seats A-F, remained empty! After relocating, the flight crew continued to be unfriendly. We will never fly with Iberia again!

✅ Trip Verified | Florence to San Sebastian via Madrid. I will never fly with Iberia again. After sitting on a plane for half an hour, due to wind we were taken off and herded back to the gate. We stood there, no one telling us anything, until they herded us back onto the plan. When i asked about a connecting flight I was told "this flight takes 2 hours". Thats it. When we landed in Madrid we were told no luggage was on board and to go to the service desk regarding our missed connection. We waited half an hour before being served by the most unhelpful and miserable woman I have met She was angry with us for not going to the departure gate, as our original connection had been delayed, meaning that if we hadn't waited for her for half an hour we would have made it. When we asked about our luggage all she did was tell us to get on the plane. At San Sebastian no staff were waiting, they had closed for the night. We had to go back and catch the flight staff as they came off the plane to help us. We filled in paperwork and were told by 1030am the next day the bags would be delivered. We were given an online portal log in and a phone number. It is the evening of the next day now. We have used the login, it says that they still don't know where our bags are. We have called the number, it isn't even connected. We have contacted them multiple times via the portal, and I know they have read our messages as they updated our bag descriptions as I instructed. Still, no one has contacted us, regardless of the urgency. I am departing for Australia tomorrow, leaving san sebastian at 6am. No one has contacted us. They have expressed no concern or interest in calling us despite my messages stating it is urgent.

✅ Trip Verified | Travelled with Iberia from Amsterdam to London Luton. Boarding passes said to be present 40 mins before departure time for boarding, all passengers where sitting and waiting but airline staff showed up about 5 minutes before departure time and took forever to get organised for no apparent reason. Plane took about 20 mins to drive to the runway and pilot stopped the plane and announced that one of the brakes wasn’t working and the engine was too hot to take off so we had to remain stationary for est 10 mins. Plane eventually took off about 10 minutes before we were supposed to land in London. Flight was fast yet concerning, plane seemed to randomly accelerate and slow down abruptly and without purpose. Inside was shabby and warning signs on the wings had visibly faded to become indecipherable. Airline staff were unhelpful and did not provide Travel cards needed to access the UK, when we requested them specifically they seemed confused about what we were asking for. There was no recognition from the staff or pilot whatsoever for the significant delay until the plane started defending and a pre-recorded message apologised for the delay (as if it happened all the time so they had it ready to go). Landing was bumpy and seemed much faster than normal and getting off the plane took much longer than usual. Worst flight I’ve ever taken and the only time over ever been concerned that a plane would not land safely. Strongly discourage using this airline.