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Breaking: Aer Lingus redemptions now bookable on avios.com – but Boston loophole closed

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The Aer Lingus Aer Club programme launched this morning.

At the same time, Aer Lingus reward availability has been loaded into avios.com.

You do NOT need to be an AerClub member to book these.  You can log in with your usual avios.com UK account details and book.

This is the first time ever that Aer Lingus awards have been bookable online with Avios.

aerclub-membership-cards

The good news ….

Some rewards are down in price.   Before yesterday, all Aer Lingus rewards were treated as ‘peak date’ pricing in the same way as any other BA partner airline.

Aer Lingus now has peak and off-peak pricing.  Apart from Easter, Christmas and the summer, the rest of the year is off-peak.

The bad news …..

Taxes have gone up.  A return flight in Business Class from Dublin to New York used to have taxes of around £75 return.  It will now cost you £200.

However, if you travel off peak, the reduction in the Avios required would mean you are no worse off.

It is also £300 cheaper than a British Airways Club World redemption from London!

The worse news …..

Dublin to Boston SHOULD be in Zone 4.  Until yesterday, it cost 75,000 Avios for a return business class flight from Dublin to Boston – which is what you expect to pay for a partner airline flight of 2,986 miles.

Aer Lingus has now moved Boston 14 miles to the west.  Dublin to Boston has been moved into Zone 5 which means it now costs 100,000 Avios off-peak and 120,000 Avios peak – the same price as Dublin to New York.

Other thoughts

The real win would be if Avios allowed you to use Lloyds Avios Rewards upgrade vouchers on Aer Lingus.  That would be an exceptional result as you could get their excellent new business class seat for the Avios of economy, as Aer Lingus does not have premium economy.  We need to see if this happens or not.

More on this story tomorrow …..

PS.  For clarity, Aer Lingus flights are NOT bookable on ba.com online. You still need to call.

Category

Aer Lingus and AerClub

Comments (71)

  • Lumma says:
    1 Dec1 December 14:24

    Seems to me that for economy travel to the US, Norwegian is far better than wasting miles on redemptions. Can book one way for about £150 (or £200 with a bag and seat selection) and don’t have to get to Dublin/Dusseldorf/Berlin/Madrid beforehand.

    It’s a shame they don’t fly to Asia for cheap tax redemptions back from Hong Kong

    • Nick says:
      1 Dec1 December 23:24

      Wait until Norwegian start running DUB-BOS hopefully next year. There was talk of 69USD each way, a few days ago 🙂

  • HIDeHi says:
    1 Dec1 December 14:27

    I see SNN to BOS is also being priced at the higher end.

  • HIDeHi says:
    1 Dec1 December 16:53

    SH does not qualify for RFS either and their taxes are highish e.g. NOC-LGW £35 in taxes one way (Ireland has low departure taxes, as does NOC airport afaik, so I’m guessing they are adding in YQ or something similar)

    • HIDeHi says:
      1 Dec1 December 16:58

      It is disappointing really because there is not a huge incentive to book off peak flights like this if they are 4000 avios and £35 in taxes, given that flights on this route are generally in the £40 to £50 cash range. Sometimes these flights do get expensive e.g. at Christmas they can be £150 one way, but whether they will ever have availability during those periods…

  • HIDeHi says:
    1 Dec1 December 17:12

    OK while this is mainly not treat, there is one area where there seems to be value.

    From BOS-DUB one way (and presumably from NYC etc.), it is only 50k avios off peak and £90 in taxes. At my valuation, this is about £490 for a O/W business class flight, which roughly matches what you can get in sales (e.g. £800/£900 return).

    In Economy, it is 13k avios and £70 in taxes, This is one of the few times where an economy long haul redemption is actually not bad value. I value this as £174 total in cost, which for a one way from US to Ireland, is pretty good, especially as the BOS flight is only 5hrs and 55mins so not too long to have to sit in economy.

  • Planeflyer says:
    1 Dec1 December 23:50

    Looks like Avios/EI are pulling the same redemptions tricks as LH does (unless they book in EI “Plus”). I just looked for a one way LHR-DUB:

    Avios price: 4000 + £76.05 (Taxes, fees & surcharges)
    Same flight on aerlingus.com: £60.99 (inc taxes)

  • Owen Rudge says:
    1 Dec1 December 23:52

    Apparently you can collect Avios on United Airlines with Aer Club! I wonder if that’s applicable to any UA flight or if it has to be purchased as part of an EI booking or something along those lines.

    • Lumma says:
      2 Dec2 December 02:54

      Seems to be any United flight. 50% of miles flown, good news when looking for cash US domestic flights to collect more avios than with American and crediting to BA

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