Questions and Answers

I bought two business class tickets with Aer Lingus to travel from Brussels to New York and back last April (total cost 4008 euros for two). Since Aer Lingus is a subsidiary of BA, I provided my BA frequent flyer number at the time of purchase. When checking my account with BA upon my return I noticed that the Brussels to Dublin and Dublin to Brussels segments appeared (with a bonus for flying Business … although the feeder flight to and from Dublin doesn’t have a business class section on the actual aircraft) but that the transatlantic segments were not rewarded as according to BA “they were ineligible for avios”. I first contacted Aer Lingus who were not very helpful and who referred me to BA for further enquiries “since it was BA’s frequent flyer programme that was concerned”. Since then I have been in touch with BA who keep on repeating that the transatlantic tickets were ineligible for miles “since they were deeply discounted”. I was never informed when buying these tickets online that at € 2004 a piece they were deeply discounted (it may have said business saver or something similar) nor did the EI website state at any moment that these tickets were not eligible for miles. When I talked to a BA agent online she said that the class code indicated that the ticket was award travel. This is of course definitely not the case. I have an emailed receipt for my payment of € 4008 and corresponding electronic tickets. Can you help at all as it seems I’m stuck with both BA and Aer Lingus. Many thanks. Roland Higgins

What was the fare class for the TATL segment?

[QUOTE=”MidSouth Skier, post: 31325, member: 184″]What was the fare class for the TATL segment?[/QUOTE]

Not sure what you mean by TATL

TATL = Trans-Atlantic

Somewhere on your actual boarding pass you should see a 1-char code indicating your fare class. Once you find that, go to wheretocredit.com to see how many miles you should earn on BA.

And you’ll want to edit the info above to remove your FF and ticket numbers.

[QUOTE=”MidSouth Skier, post: 31330, member: 184″]TATL = Trans-Atlantic

Somewhere on your actual boarding pass you should see a 1-char code indicating your fare class. Once you find that, go to wheretocredit.com to see how many miles you should earn on BA.

And you’ll want to edit the info above to remove your FF and ticket numbers.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=”MidSouth Skier, post: 31325, member: 184″]What was the fare class for the TATL segment?[/QUOTE]

It just says BUSINESS and Priority Boarding on the boarding pass – No C or J Codes. On the receipt I posted earlier it said for the feeder flight from Brussels to Dublin “J/Economy Class CONFIRMED” and for the Transatlantic segments “P/Business Class CONFIRMED”. P/Business class is not an option on wheretocredit.com. Thanks for your insights.

According to the British Airways website, if the class was “P” on AerLingus, it is not eligible for mileage accrual, unfortunately.

Even if I can accept that a Business Class ticket bought at a promotional price would not yield a Business Class level of miles (at least if I had been told), at € 2000 per ticket I’m way above what one would pay for a return Economy Class ticket between Europe and the US … so why doesn’t it at least yield Economy Class level miles rather than being ‘ineligible’? Could the P/Business Class reference on my purchase receipt be a mistake as the service desk person I talked to the phone suggested?

Hi Roland, I wish we had a better explanation, but unfortunately that “P” code just doesn’t earn anything. If you search for “earning Avios on AerLingus transatlantic flights” on Google, there are a few FlyerTalk threads of reports of others with the same issue. And none of have a positive solution.

If you feel you were misled in the booking process, then you may have a case to argue. But, I certainly have no legal advice 🙂

[QUOTE=”rickyw, post: 31378, member: 1436″]Hi Roland, I wish we had a better explanation, but unfortunately that “P” code just doesn’t earn anything. If you search for “earning Avios on AerLingus transatlantic flights” on Google, there are a few FlyerTalk threads of reports of others with the same issue. And none of have a positive solution.

If you feel you were misled in the booking process, then you may have a case to argue. But, I certainly have no legal advice :)[/QUOTE]
I wrote a polite letter to the CEO of Aer Lingus with a copy to the Travel Editor of the Irish Times and two weeks later I received the missing miles. Thanks for your advice.