In our other article today we published the Iberia and British Airways peak and off peak calendars for 2019 which are very useful when planning reward flights, especially during school holidays.
Since 2017 Aer Lingus also has its own peak and off peak calendar.
Three periods are noticeably different from the BA calendar. Aer Lingus doesn’t have an October and February peak season during the UK half terms, the April peak season is one week shorter and there’s also no peak season towards the end of May / early June.
February and most of October are also off peak on Iberia, but there are number of days where Aer Lingus is the only IAG airline with off peak days.
On short haul the cost differences are modest. If you want to fly from London to Dublin in Economy on 12th February 2019 you would pay 4,000 Avios with Aer Lingus (off peak) and 4,500 Avios (peak) with BA, one way.
On a long haul flight the saving would be way more, of course, and makes the Aer Lingus long haul services from Dublin to North America particularly attractive during these periods.
(Aer Lingus long haul in Business Class is also very attractive, versus British Airways Club World, with the new 1-2-1 fully flat seats. We reviewed the seat here)
Just to be clear the Aer Lingus peak and off-peak dates apply to Aer Lingus flights wherever you book them. If you book an Aer Lingus flight on ba.com (actually, you can’t do it online, you need to call) then it goes by the Aer Lingus calendar and not the BA calendar. The same goes for Iberia and, if booked on the Iberia site, BA. You should compare the taxes and charges across both avios.com and the BA call centre before booking however.
Aer Lingus 2018: (blue = off-peak, green = peak, click to substantially enlarge)
Aer Lingus 2019:
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About Head for Points
Slightly OT – I have an aer lingus flight booked on points via BA. Are there any OneWorld portals I can use to manage my booking and pick seats or do I have to phone. I’ve tried BA and Aerlingus but no option. Thanks
This is a bit of a guess but if you look your trip up here https://classic.checkmytrip.com/plnext/XCMTXXNS/CleanUpSessionPui.action?SITE=XCMTXXNS&LANGUAGE=GB
… you might see a different booking reference for AerLingus that will work on their website.
Is it just me that can’t seem to just save them as 1 sheet ?
Seems to split them into 5 rows of 3 ?
That is how they displayed on the Avios site annoyingly.
If you zoom out your browser on avios.com you can get them on a single screenshot.
Just do a screen shot of HFP and use picresize.com or similar to crop it.
Can you book Aer Lingus on BA.com now? I thought you had to call?
Yes you do , sorry
Is there any disadvantage to booking Aer Lingus on ba.com like there is for IB flights?
Taxes differ (or at least did) between ba.com and avios.com
I’ve found recently that for short haul, taxes are greater when phoning BA than on Avios.com but for long haul, the opposite is true.