Wide Open: Aer Lingus Business Class Awards

If you’re looking to take the whole family to Europe this summer, Aer Lingus has just released an incredible amount of business class award availability.

Aer Lingus summer business class awards

In the past couple of days Aer Lingus has released an unreal amount of business class award availability for travel between the US East Coast and Dublin this summer.

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I see four or more business class award seats available on so many flights, which wasn’t previously the case.

There’s tons of availability from Boston to Dublin.

There’s also a lot of availability from the New York area to Dublin.

Even the Hartford to Dublin flight, which is operated by the smaller A321LR, has four business class award seats most dates.

Unfortunately I don’t see much availability from Aer Lingus’ West Coast US gateways, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. There’s also not much availability from their Canadian gateway, Toronto.

I’d say this is a really good opportunity to snag business class awards.

Aer Lingus A321LR

Best ways to redeem miles on Aer Lingus

There are three programs that are best for redeeming miles on Aer Lingus — Alaska Mileage Plan, British Airways Executive Club, and United MileagePlus.

Alaska Mileage Plan

Alaska charges 60,000 Mileage Plan miles for a one-way business class award from the US to Europe:

• You can position to an Aer Lingus gateway on Alaska Airlines
• You can plan a complimentary stopover in Dublin, enroute to your final destination in Europe
• There are no carrier imposed surcharges
• You can book directly on alaskaair.com

See here for the best credit cards for earning Alaska miles.

British Airways Executive Club

British Airways has a distance based award chart, and charges 50,000-60,000 Avios for a one-way business class award from the US East Coast to Dublin, depending on whether you’re traveling peak or off-peak:

• Pricing is per segment, and doesn’t include any positioning flights
• There are carrier imposed surcharges, but they’re very mild
• You have to call British Airways Executive Club to book

See here for the best credit cards for earning British Airways Avios.

United MileagePlus

United charges 70000 MileagePlus miles for a one-way business class award from the US to Europe, unless booking last minute, in which case it’s up to 3,500 extra miles:

• You can include flights on United and other Star Alliance partners on the same itinerary
• There are no carrier imposed surcharges
• You can book directly on united.com

See here for the best credit cards for earning United miles.

Aer Lingus’ business class product

Aer Lingus uses both Airbus A330s and A321LRs for their long haul flights. These planes feature fully flat staggered seats in business class, which are pretty comfortable, especially given that they operate relatively short flights.

Aer Lingus A321LR business class

I’ve always found Aer Lingus’ service to be friendly, and found the food and amenities to be pretty good. They offer an all around cute experience, in my opinion.

You can read a review of Aer Lingus’ A330 business class here, and a review of Aer Lingus’ A321LR business class here.

Dinner in Aer Lingus business class

Bottom line

Aer Lingus has exceptional award availability from some US gateways to Dublin, including Boston, Hartford, and New York. Many flights this summer have four or more business class award seats, which is pretty awesome.

Aer Lingus has a solid business class product, and on top of that Ireland is a beautiful country to visit in summer.

Anyone taking advantage of this great Aer Lingus business class award availability?