Aer Lingus launches two new US cities, bookable with Avios

Aer Lingus has announced a brand new route to the United States as well as re-launching a second.

Both routes will commence operations next summer and are from Dublin.

Flights to Denver, Colorado will begin on 17th May 2024. This is a new route for Aer Lingus and will operate four times a week – Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday – under the following schedule:

• EI59 departs Dublin at 4:15pm and arrives in Denver at 7pm
• EI60 departs Denver at 8:45pm and arrives in Dublin at 12:30pm the following day

Aer Lingus will also resume flights to Minneapolis – St Paul. The route will resume on 29th April 2024 starting as a four-weekly service before increasing to daily from October 2024. Initially flights will be operated on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays:

• EI89 departs Dublin at 2:20pm and arrives in Minneapolis at 4:55pm
• EI88 departs Minneapolis at 6:45pm and arrives in Dublin at 8:25am the following morning.

Both routes will initially be served with wide-body Airbus A330s, although Minneapolis will be down-gauged to a single-aisle Airbus A321XLR once additional aircraft arrive in Winter 2024. Rob and I have reviewed both aircraft:

• Review of Aer Lingus business class on the A330
• Review of Aer Lingus business class on the A321LR

Whilst Aer Lingus doesn’t give any guarantees over Avios availability, and it is often very hard to find premium seats on prime US routes such as New York, there is often more availability to secondary cities.

You can check times and pricing on the Aer Lingus website here.

Spoiler alert!

Amusingly, just a few hours after the Aer Lingus announcement, Delta Air Lines announced that it was also starting Dublin to Minneapolis-Saint Paul flights.

It will start on 9th May – eight days after Aer Lingus – and will operate five flights per week. This flight will be bookable with Virgin Points although Delta is well known for making virtually no Business Class availability to partners.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (September 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.

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.

EDIT: Applications for this card are temporarily suspended due to IT issues with the British Airways On Business SME loyalty scheme.

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.