Save 20% on almost all hotels, everywhere via an Aer Lingus AerClub promo

AerClub is the Avios-based reward scheme for Aer Lingus, BA’s sister airline.  The ability to pay for hotels (and car hire and experiences, but we’re focusing on hotels here) has just been introduced to AerClub.

AerClub has been running an interesting offer.  You can save 20% on all hotels bookings made using Avios – or, more interestingly, part cash and part Avios.  You must book by 19th July but can stay until 31st December 2018.

You can find out more on the AerClub site here.

This deal has been implemented in a slightly odd way which makes it good value for using Avios – but very good value for using cash.

When you use Avios to book a hotel, you are given a number of options.  One is ‘all Avios’.  The last is usually ‘1000 Avios plus a lot of cash’.  There are few options in the middle.

Because the ‘all Avios’ option has been reduced by 20% under this promo, all of the other options have been reduced by 20% too.  This includes the ‘1000 Avios plus a lot of cash’ one.

I know this isn’t too clear.  It is easier to explain with an example.  Here is the Hilton London Paddington for 16th August booked via the BA ‘Avios for hotels’ booking portal which is not running this promotion:

…. and here is the same hotel via the avios.com hotel portal when you log in via an Aer Club account (if you don’t have one, open one at aerlingus.com and then log in at avios.com with the details):

How does the pricing compare?

The cash price of this room booked via hilton.com for non-members of Hilton Honors is £209.

This is in line with the price via the BA hotel portal, at £200 plus 1000 Avios.

Using the avios.com hotel portal (logged in with an Aer Club account) we get a far better deal – £160 plus 1000 Avios.

To book ….

You could book this hotel with ‘all Avios’ but you’re only getting the usual 0.55p per point of value compared to Aer Club’s heavily discounted cash price.

It is far better to just move 1,000 Avios from British Airways to your AerClub account and then, in this case, pay the £160 cash.

This same deal seems to work for ALL of the hotels in ALL countries on the avios.com booking site.  Some do not let you go as low as 1,000 Avios, however, so you may need to burn more points.

Remember that bookings via the Avios / BA hotel booking sites do NOT earn you loyalty points in the hotel scheme and do NOT earn you status benefits.  If you can get a 20% discount on the usual cash price via this Aer Lingus offer, however, you will struggle to beat that at most properties even if you are sacrificing points earning.

If you want to see the full details, look at the AerClub site here.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2023)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive 30,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 30,000 Avios) with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. You receive 25,000 points if you spend £3,000 in three months and a further 5,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive a huge 100,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 100,000 Avios) with The Platinum Card. You receive 75,000 points if you spend £10,000 in six months and a further 25,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.