We traveled to Portugal and Spain from August 13 to August 24, spending 5 nights each in Porto and Barcelona.
| Photos | Porto | Barcelona | Schedule | Costs |
Booking and Planning
I found the LAX-MAD flight via ThriftyTraveler’s alerts in August of last year. August didn’t feel like the ideal time to visit Spain (it’s too hot) and we originally planned to travel in May. But I wanted to set an east coast trip in May before points booking with AA went up in price. And also, of the few hotels in which I can use Amex Hilton Aspire credit card’s resort credits, there is a hotel in Porto that takes it. I thought we could combine a stay there with this trip.
I booked us LAX-Madrid-Porto in Iberia business, but had the unforeseen hiccup that we needed to stay home on May 23 for a family event. Since our hotel stay on the night of August 23 would have been free through Hilton’s fifth night free benefit, this was not price-optimal. We booked an August 23 Barcelona-Madrid-LAX Iberia PE return flight with Avios (using British Airways to book to get a better cancellation policy).
Then, 1-2 months before the trip, I started seeing return flight alternatives in J saver rate on American Airlines. There were lots of options, routing through MIA, PHL, JFK, DFW. We booked MIA, then PHL, but then I figured that PHL-LAX is not likely to have frequent service to LAX so if there is one disruption with the flight schedule we could end up stranded for half a day or more. So I chose the DFW option with a 6 hour layover there (leaving DFW at 9:30pm), hoping we could standby for the 3:30pm, 5:30pm, 6:30pm options.
I also briefly considered replacing the LAX-MAD-OPO flight for a LAX-JFK-OPO on Delta J to try out their JFK lounge but we ultimately decided against it as JFK-OPO doesn’t give nearly enough time to sleep during the flight.
Flight LAX-Madrid-Porto
Boarding in LAX
I think Iberia doesn’t allow you to enter your TSA Precheck KTN number during the online booking. It seems you have to request it through customer support..? I can’t remember if I did or not. Maybe when I booked it in August of 2025 and immediately tried to add KTN, they said that it was too far away and couldn’t handle it. And then maybe I forgot. When we showed up at the airport, we found at the security checkpoint that our tickets didn’t have Precheck. But we happened to have Clear+ and breezed through regular security. This is the one time where it came in handy at LAX. We camped out behind the reclining chairs in the Qantas lounge until two people got off, and took a nap there.
Our flight was delayed by 30 minutes, but Iberia only updated the departure time on our boarding pass, keeping the boarding time the same at 4:50pm. Apparently when the arriving aircraft is delayed, the airline expects the departure to be delayed but they still try to keep the boarding time, so sometimes you show up on time to board and they barely manage to clean the aircraft before boarding starts. So we went there at 4:50pm, but the boarding was nowhere near starting. The arriving aircraft had gated 10 minutes ago, and the passengers were deplaning. The airport was pretty hot. At 5:30pm, they finally lined us up to board. They announced that they were not taking digital boarding passes, paper only. (What? Why) so we got one through the gate agent. Then we just stood there and waited by the gate, then waited outside the jetbridge, then waited inside the jetbridge.. while they were still cleaning the plane. I saw the crew rolling out big balls of laundry down the stairs.
Iberia A350
The food was fine. We got antipasti, burrata, salmon, and chicken breast.
The seats are the old school ones similar to Asiana’s A380 J layout. But it has more storage than Asiana. The footwell was on the small side and uncomfortable. I think even numbered window seats have about 20% more width in the footwell because it opens to the side, towards the wall. We should get those next time. Some of the seats make a high pitched whirring noise as you recline them.
The in-flight map had open source license acknowledgments – OpenStreetMap, “modified Copernicus Sentinel data”, etc which is pretty cool. Their hardware is so slow though. And at first I got the impression that you can’t move the map at all, it’s just a view of the entire globe with a line showing the flight’s trajectory, which looked super uninteresting. For some reason, later on I was able to drag around in “Aircraft view”. They also have options called “above cam” or “chase cam”, but they aren’t camera feeds from outside the airplane like Air France’s A350. They are just satellite photo data (pretty high res) pretending that you are looking out the window. Okay… that’s unusual.
Connecting in Madrid’s Terminal 4S
When booking the flights, we originally had a two-hour layover in Madrid to transfer to Porto. I thought two hours would be fine, especially considering I had seen options for even shorter one-hour layovers—which felt entirely too tight. I knew there was a chance our inbound flight might land early, giving us a comfortable two-and-a-half-hour buffer. Ultimately, we landed with about 1 hour and 50 minutes to spare, right on schedule.
Gemini said that it would be a little tight but doable. We just need to keep walking to our gate. However, the airport navigation was super confusing right from the start.
The Iberia app lets you add the boarding pass to my Google Wallet. This boarding pass listed our departing gate as 46S.
At LAX, they told us that we couldn’t board with the digital one so we got one printed. They printed us the MAD-OPO flight too. In that one, there was no gate listed but it said “K Zone”.
As we were landing, the screens showed how to use their passport control system. To go the kiosks, scan passport and get a photo and fingerprints taken, answer to some questions on the screen, then walk to the automatic security gate and scan your passport again and that’s it! Ok good got it.
We were the third person to get off the plane, along with I assume were other anxious connecting passengers. At the end of the jetbridge, we were stuck a few minutes as the grond crew argued among themselves about which of the two hallways was the one that was supposed to be used by the deplaning passengers. As we walked inside the airport, we saw a couple dozen kiosks lined up with signage saying “Non EU Citizens register here”. But no one was using them. This must be the ESTA system that the EU planned to roll out last year but had been getting delayed multiple times. Everything in their system is already pointing at the ESTA, but it’s not implemented yet. (Currently delayed until end of 2026)
Then there were lines on the ground. Pink for non-EU Citizens, blue for EU Citizens. We followed the pink line.. And though the line ended at a point and there was a security checkpoint there. Is this passport control? But it looks empty? We entered it and showed the boarding pass. They told us we need to keep going towards the “K Gates”. Okay.. shortly after the pink lines resumed. There were many hallways and doors and stairs and it was very easy to lose track of the pink lines, which were not always showing up. They sometimes disappeared and then you had to look for the signage.
It was very confusing what this “K Zone” was supposed to be. Looking at how it unfolded, it seems that they cluster gates into groups and give them Zone names.
When we finally reached immigration and passport control. There were a dozen lanes and a total of 100 people lined up. We showed our boarding passes to the airport worker who directed us to the one lane to the right painted blue, that read “urgent connections”. Some passengers like us and airplane crew members were going through this line. Phew. We were through passport control in 10 minutes. This was supposed to be the biggest time sink, so we were good so far.
Then there were some confusing signage but we managed to take the escalators down and find the underground monorail that connects T4S with T4.
After arriving at 4S, we had to walk through a duty-free shopping area with loud music playing. The signage was appearing and disappearing randomly. We checked the flight display boards, which now listed our gate as J64.
As we hunted for the K Zone, signs split off: one pointing toward Gates J50–J59 and another to the right for Gates J80–J89. Neither sign posted range options that included 64 (it was either 50–59 or 80–89), nor did it match the original digital pass listing of 46.
We decided to just follow the J50–J59 direction, and eventually, the concourse opened up into a market-like setup where each booth served as a gate. Out of nowhere, signs finally appeared for Gates 60–70. We made it to the gate as our group was standing to board soon.
Boarding and paying for “Business Class”
When we reached our gate, we noticed a regular-sized narrow-body plane hooked up to the jet bridge outside. Strangely, staff announced that we would be taking a shuttle bus to board our plane instead.
Looking at the gate setup, the jet bridge path was completely blocked off—a total “ghost tunnel” that hid where it went—forcing everyone down a flight of stairs to the tarmac bus. The bus drove us out to a separate section of the apron reserved for smaller CRJ-1000 regional aircraft. We knew this in advance. The airplane looked much smaller than I expected though.
When booking the LAX–MAD–OPO route, I had been offered various class upgrades for the Madrid-to-Porto segment (Business, Economy, Economy Comfort with extra legroom, etc.). Expecting a long, tiring journey, I opted to spend the extra ~10,000 Avios to book us into Business Class for the Porto segment as well, expecting a standard “Eurobiz” setup (a 3×3 layout with the middle seat blocked out).
The way in which this flight was “business class” is puzzling.
Because the plane is 2×2, there is no middle seat to block. Which makes sense. The first five rows were separated by a small curtain, but the seats themselves had the exact same width and legroom pitch as standard Economy. So what’s the point of the curtains.. just to give you a sense of getting something.
Because the aircraft was so small, gate agents required every single passenger to gate-check their carry-on suitcases, leaving people with only their personal item. No explanation. Just gate checking everyone and putting a little tag on it.
When agents saw our boarding pass, they tagged our suitcases with grey Priority tags. We assumed this meant our bags would hit a baggage carousel first upon arrival.
Watching the ground crew load the plane felt like watching baggage get packed into the underbelly of a charter bus—they were just standing right there handing bags up manually.
The flight itself was tiny and super uncomfortable, but it was only 45 minutes, so it doesn’t matter much.
Upon landing in Porto, there was no indoor baggage carousel. Instead, qwe walked down the mobile air stairs directly onto the tarmac. Ground workers got the suitcases unloaded and just placed them on the tarmac for each passenger to pick up their own as we left. The “Priority” luggage service consisted entirely of ground workers placing our tagged bags about three feet closer to the walkway as we stepped off the plane so we could grab them ourselves before getting on the arrival bus.
I am at a loss here. What exactly was Iberia selling by selling a separate economy and business class ticket. Basically all seats were economy.
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