Score round-trip business class to Europe for $1,116 through this Groupon offer

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

A promotion we've written about multiple times in the past has returned yet again: the Spanish Groupon website is selling packages of Iberia Avios. Thanks to a beneficial exchange rate and cheap purchase rates, you can score Iberia Avios for as little as 1.39 US cents each -- before potential shopping portal bonuses.

The Groupon Deal: The cost per Avios varies based on which package you get, but — before shopping portal bonuses — you can purchase Avios for as little as 1.39 US cents each:

• 1,000 Avios for 19 euros (~$21, 2.09 cents each)
• 2,000 Avios for 29 euros (~$32, 1.59 cents each)
• 4,000 Avios for 59 euros (~$65, 1.62 cents each)
• 8,000 Avios for 109 euros (~$120, 1.50 cents each)
• 15,000 Avios for 199 euros (~$219, 1.46 cents each)
• 20,000 Avios for 259 euros (~$284, 1.42 cents each)
• 34,000 Avios for 429 euros (~$471, 1.39 cents each)

Amplify the Deal: Although you can no longer score 13x Avios per Euro spent, you may still be able to get bonus Avios by buying this Groupon through the Iberia shopping portal. The terms and conditions now translate to "You will receive a lower reward than the aforementioned when buying 2,000, 4,000, 8,000, 12,000 or 20,000 Avios (or any amount of Avios)," so you won't get the current headline bonus of 13x Avios per Euro. However, you should still get the base of 5x Avios.

Update: I received an email saying that my purchase is pending earnings at a rate of 5x Avios.

With these bonus Avios, you can drop the average price to just 1.30 cents per point. That's a decent discount from the current TPG valuation of 1.5 cents per Avios. That said, to get this deal, you're going to need to know Spanish or use a website translation tool to purchase:

Groupon Terms and Conditions:

• The 1,000 and 2,000 Avios packages are limited to one purchase per Iberia member. While these packages have provided the best purchase rate in the past, that's no longer the case. So, this limit isn't a problem as the only good reason for buying a small package is to generate activity on your Iberia account.
• There's a purchase limit of 100,000 Avios per Iberia account across all packages.
• You must redeem your Groupon voucher for Iberia Avios by Nov. 7, 2019. However, you don't need to use the Avios by this date.

The 100,000 purchase limit means that you'll only be able to buy two packages of 34,000 Avios -- the package which provides the lowest purchase rate. If you wanted to maximize your purchase limit, you can add on another two packages of 15,000 Avios. Between the four packages, you'd get 98,000 Avios for 1,256 euros ($1,379) before portal bonuses.

Steps to Maximize This Deal

1. If you don’t have an Iberia Plus account, register online.
2. Start at the Spanish version of the IberiaPluStore home page and log in to your account at the upper right corner where it says "Acceder." (If you try to start directly from the English version of the page or directly at the Groupon page, you may get an error.) Then after you're logged in, you may need to switch the language into English using the "Idioma" box at the upper left corner.
3. Navigate to the IberiaPluStore's Groupon page.
4. Click "Shop Now" to be transferred to Groupon with a tracking cookie. Even though the popup notes that you'll get "up to 13 Avios / € 1 shopping at Groupon ES," your earnings are likely to be less when buying Avios.
   

1. Search "Avios" at the top of the page.
2. Choose the package(s) that you want to purchase.
3. Try using a card that doesn’t charge a foreign transaction fee. If you run into errors, try using PayPal to pay. While I've had to use PayPal in the past, I had no trouble using my Citi Premier® Card when taking advantage of this deal this time around or Chase Sapphire Reserve in November 2018.
4. Complete your purchase. Based on my experience, you should be able to retrieve your voucher within a few minutes.
   

1. Redeem your Groupon voucher(s) via the provided Google Form before the expiration date. When you submit the voucher code and your Iberia Plus account number, the form notes it takes 10 days for the Avios to post to your IberiaPlus account. So, be prepared for this delay.
   

1. Check back to confirm your IberiaPluStore bonus Avios posted. It typically takes a few weeks before these bonus Avios post, so don't expect them immediately.

Why Buy Avios

While there are some great redemptions using Iberia's chart itself, the most-relevant redemptions for TPG readers are for domestic American Airlines awards. The cumulative distance-based Iberia award chart starts at just 11,000 Avios for flights less than 600 miles -- including a number of routes to the Bahamas and Caribbean. Just note that round-trip awards are required when redeeming Iberia Avios for AA award flights.

However, a much more lucrative use of Avios is flying overseas in premium cabins. For example, it takes just 34,000 Avios one-way — or 68,000 Avios round-trip — to fly from New York (JFK), Boston (BOS) or Chicago (ORD) to Madrid (MAD) in business class. And taxes and fees are reasonable:

And it's really easy to get this award. All you have to do is buy one package of 34,000 Avios for a one-way award or two packages of 34,000 Avios for a round-trip. After adding in the award's taxes and fees of $224, you'd pay just $1,116 for a round-trip business class flight to Europe. Any Avios earned through the shopping portal would be a bonus toward future redemptions.

And business class isn't the only sweet spot that you should consider when debating whether or not to buy Avios. I've used Iberia Avios that I purchased during one of the previous Groupon offers toward the 25,500 Avios needed to book a one-way premium economy flight from New York's JFK to Madrid (MAD) during an off-peak date.

Transferring to British Airways Avios

You can also transfer Avios from your Iberia account to your British Airways account. But, there are some limitations before you can do so: Both of your accounts — British Airways’ Executive Club and Iberia’s Iberia Plus — must have been open for at least 90 days. So, if you open an Iberia Plus account for this promotion, you’ll need to wait 90 days to transfer Avios from Iberia to British Airways.

In addition to the 90-day rule, you need to make sure your personal information is listed identically in both Iberia's and BA's systems before you're allowed to transfer between accounts. This is the roadblock that I ran into when trying to book the Iberia premium economy flight at the last minute. Your birth date, email address and name all have to match before the transfer can occur.

Once your Avios are transferred, you can take advantage of British Airways' distance-based award chart. Need more British Airways Avios? The British Airways Visa Signature Card is currently offering new cardmembers 100,000 bonus Avios after you spend $5,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening.

Bottom Line

For those looking for cheap Avios, this is a great opportunity to get points for as little as 1.30 cents each. While this is a great rate, it's a hassle to have to buy the Avios through Spain's Groupon page and wait up a couple of weeks for all of the points to post. Hopefully the step-by-step instructions above based on our experience from past similar deals will make it an easy deal to utilize.