The IAG takeover of Aer Lingus moves a step closer

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• Carlo says:

  4 Jun4 June 06:51

  Just booked for April two tickets to Boston from April, 25,000 avoid and £105 (two economy seats – both quite short :)). Superb use of miles.

  Internal use of avios in the U.S. seems good too as the charges are super low (around £3 a seat).

  • Carlo says:

    4 Jun4 June 06:53

    From Dublin even

  • Nick says:

    4 Jun4 June 09:32

    Hang on: are you saying that 25,000 avios and £100 gets two return flights from Dublin to Boston?!? How do you book this?

    • Danny says:

      4 Jun4 June 11:26

      looks possible http://www.aerlingus.com/goldcircle/usingyourpoints/

    • Brendan says:

      4 Jun4 June 12:13

      You have to ring BA to check availability and book

    • Brendan says:

      4 Jun4 June 13:53

      Oh and that would be 2 one way flights. Double that for return flights

      • Nick says:

        4 Jun4 June 14:18

        Ah! That makes more sense. Thanks! Still, a bit of a bargain.

  • AlanYoung says:

    4 Jun4 June 13:44

    Likewise, please can you enlighten me how this done. I am interested to do the same.

  • Hugh R says:

    4 Jun4 June 22:22

    My daughter is about to book a flight to Boston for August. It doesn’t look as though there is any availability with Avios, not too much of a surprise as August must be peak time, although there does look to be availability with Avios from LHR at 20,000 miles.

    Interestingly though we searched for availability through the United web site. On the dates that do show up as having availability it looks to be 30,000 miles. Is a United mile valued differently to an Avios point? Is it worth ringing BA anyway and getting them to check availability from Dublin?

    • Alan says:

      4 Jun4 June 22:39

      No harm in ringing, you can’t book Aer Lingus flights via the BA website and the availability they have can be different to what United sees. The number of miles United are asking for is irrelevant as it’s a totally different programme 🙂

• Dom says:

  4 Jun4 June 07:38

  Main thing for me is how the regional connections to Dublin will be dealt with, free like BA long haul or priced separately.

  • Calchas says:

    4 Jun4 June 10:44

    If they are in the TATL joint venture the entire journey is priced from end to end. How you get there and which planes you use are not important, except for some airport taxes.

    • Brendan says:

      4 Jun4 June 12:15

      I think he maybe means using Avios. The way the domestic segment to LHR is free when booking long haul

      • Dom says:

        4 Jun4 June 15:49

        Yes I did mean the free domestic connections using avios to LHR. Only worth me using aer lingus over BA if they did the same thing on the connections to DUB.

        • Tariq says:

          5 Jun5 June 07:54

          If you start your journey in the mainland UK on the same booking as the DUB LH flight then the whole lot will be subject to APD though?

        • Rob says:

          5 Jun5 June 08:50

          If all on one ticket, yes.

• Feenster says:

  4 Jun4 June 08:53

  The only reason for my 3/4 flights from Belfast to London each month was to collect enough avois to take the brood to Boston each summer. I wonder how long until the ridiculous avios surcharge comes into play with the dub bos route.

  Now that IAG are buying Aer Lingus its highly probable the Belfast routes will be cut (current BA not IE), my silver status will expire (and avois earning ability diminish) anyhow with the new avios rules. AlsoI will drop lounge access in 12 months. Why do I fly BA now? Cornflakes in the morning and 2 Heineken on the way home.

  I have 250K avios to burn – but need to work a new strategy.
  Bring back British Midland

  • Calchas says:

    4 Jun4 June 10:44

    Why do you think BHD will be axed?

    • Feenster says:

      4 Jun4 June 16:01

      I understand there is a 7 year agreement to maintain the aer lingus flights as is. No mention of what they do with the BA metal. Flew this morning on a flight less than 50% full – so my guess is that this capacity will be moved to other more lucrative routes and the combined service from Belfast will suffer.

      • Brendan says:

        5 Jun5 June 09:27

        7 years for DUB, SNN and ORK, 5 years for others.

  • DONE4 says:

    4 Jun4 June 13:37

    The only reason you flew Belfast-London was to earn avios? Seems like a rather expensive way to do it..

    • Feenster says:

      4 Jun4 June 16:01

      Thats company policy for you 🙂

  • Lady London says:

    4 Jun4 June 23:18

    If you do work out a strategy please let us know.

• Daftboy says:

  4 Jun4 June 09:16

  I’d flag a note of caution about crediting to Gold Circle – you only earn points on higher economy fares and above – W, Z, A, U, T are excluded, which in my experience covers most of the lead-in economy fares. “Plus” fares (which include a check bag) earn GC points, but I think you need to email in to get them credited retrospectively. All business class fares would earn, so if doing paid business to the US you would get 1000 points each way.

  Until you reach the threshold within a year to be a Gold Circle elite member (2400 points for “Gold”, the base level – UK to IE is 100 each way) you are an “Applicant” and can’t really do anything with your account; certainly until recently you couldn’t even log in and see your balance, and you don’t receive the monthly member emails that tracks your balance.

  To be fair to Aer Lingus management, they have obviously recognised how outdated the scheme is and had flagged that they intended to relaunch it this year. I expect that is now on hold pending the outcome of the IAG acquisition.

  Also note that higher economy fares already earn a handful of Avios in BA Exec Club (I got 75 for a recent R fare from ORK to BRS, post 28 April), which may be less hassle than trying to get to grips with GC!

  • ADS says:

    11 Jun11 June 10:17

    I knew that when EI went low-cost they made GC hard to acquire … didn’t realise it was that hard.

    Just as long as IAG don’t take the lead from EI and make BAEC similarly hard to join !

• DONE4 says:

  4 Jun4 June 10:10

  “British Airways already adds fuel surcharges to American Airlines redemptions even though American does not even have fuel surcharges! ”

  This is not correct. AA does have fuel surcharges, they just don’t apply them on AAdvantage award tickets.

  An AA LHR-JFK fare includes the following:
  AA YR surcharge (YR) £91.50

  • Rob says:

    4 Jun4 June 11:48

    Thanks for clarifying.

• RK says:

  4 Jun4 June 21:35

  In theory, the could also offer off peak pricing for Aer Lingus flights, as they have with BA and Iberia. DUB-BOS might get cheap avios wise off peak. Also, wouldn’t this route qualify for RFS taxes?

  • RK says:

    4 Jun4 June 21:35

    *they *cheaper

    Terrible typing, my bad.

    • RK says:

      4 Jun4 June 21:38

      Nevermind, RFS is only for routes up to band 3. This is a band 4 route. Also Iberia do not offer RFS so Aer Lingus probably won’t either.

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