Back in 2012, one of the hottest award redemptions was redeeming British Airways Avios for transatlantic travel in Aer Lingus business class. There were two thing made this redemption especially sweet:
Continue reading: Is Redeeming British Airways Avios On Aer Lingus Still A Good Deal?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Hi Ben,
You wrote "All partner awards price at the off-peak level".
Then shouldn't the 3001 to 4000 mile band cost 13000 Avios for economy and 50000 for business?
What about if transferring the avios to AerClub/ avios.com?
Does that change the calculus? I honestly don't know since I haven't looked into it.
Does EI charge more in fees if you transfer your BA miles to avios.com and book there? I just made a booking this week via the avios site and it was $280 in fees for JFK-DUB rt in business. A lot less painful than dealing with BA hold times, but did it cost me an extra $165 vs your example above?
I am confused. Do you need avios points with avios.com to redeem, or can you use avios points with British Airways Executive Club?
@steve you need to move your avios.com avios to BA avios. I assume you might be able to use them through Aer Lingus or Iberia avios as well?
This seems like a great deal if you fly it in business but if flying economy not so much. You can typically find round trips on the BOS-DUB route for $400-$450 including taxes on Aer Lingus and less on WOW, etc. But business class is very high in cash.
Lucky, time to address some of the below stories:
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2017/09/united_airlines_leaves_77-year-old_wom an_stranded.html
and
@ Cliff Brown- the space BA can see is what is shown on Avios.com. Some of that shows up on united.com, but by no means all. But if you can see it on Avios.com, you can call up BA and book it with BA Avios.
Did 2 economy roundtrip redemptions from the US West Coast to Dublin for 50K miles this summer for family (didn't have enough for business). Surprisingly, on different flights, both had relatively empty economy sections and got to stretch out over 2-3 seats. Fees for a roundtrip in economy were $114. That's about $70 than the fees United charges for a roundtrip economy award US-Ireland.
@DanInMCI- Agreed about economy not being a great deal, except in the summer from SFO or LAX, I think 50K Avios plus $114 is a pretty good value, as those tickets are in the $1,000 range or so- that's what other family members paid for the same flights. Not as many cheap options from the West Coast as there are from the East Coast.
I think that it's true that although you can book aer lingus online on avios.com (although you may need to be UK based to have an account with them?). If you book over the phone with BA you get the cheaper taxes where avios.com charge about £100 each way for economy. I think avios.com also now charges peak and off peak prices though for aer lingus so not sure if BA does the same if you book over the phone.
Lucky, their ground service isn't world class, but I'm a huge fan of Aer Lingus for transatlantic from Dublin. I don't think I consistently feel genuinely more welcome in J or F on any airline in any country. You should give them a spin. And we should clarify that it's not direct aisle access from every seat, but the majority of seats. A330 alternates between 1-2-2 and 1-2-1 and 757 alternates between 1-1 and 2-2.
Looking at EI's new MIA/DUB route on Expert Flyer, I've found many dates with business class availability. But when looking for it on avios.com or calling BA, it's not there. Aer Lingus have told me that they reserve inventory for their own AerClub members. So unfortunately Expert Flyer doesn't seem a reliable method of finding seats that can be booked with Avios.
AerClub *IS* avios.com with a fancy UI on top of it, so that doesn't make sense to me