FINALLY! Earn British Airways tier points with Aer Lingus flights

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• Chris says:

  3 Apr3 April 08:15

  I’ve had success by clearing cache and trying again. That was the guidance I got by calling AerClub actually. It’s a terrible platform actually…

  • DA says:

    3 Apr3 April 20:33

    Chris,
    Which cache did you clear: BA, EI or Avios.com?

• Indy500 says:

  3 Apr3 April 09:02

  Sod it, flew with them 10 days ago….

• PGR says:

  3 Apr3 April 09:13

  Will it be possible to earn tier points via Aer Lingus Regional/”Emerald Airlines”?

  • Rob says:

    3 Apr3 April 09:48

    The Exeter example in the article is an Emerald flight. And the Manchester one is Aer Lingus UK which is technically separate. All seem OK.

    • PGR says:

      3 Apr3 April 09:51

      Thanks Rob. Thought maybe wouldn’t qualify given often cheaper fare classes – good to know

• Earthman says:

  3 Apr3 April 09:50

  Excelent news for those of us Dublin based
  I usually take AA tatl
  Now I can take EI

• Fay says:

  3 Apr3 April 10:32

  Apologies if these are daft question but a) would AL regional flights need to be business class or would economy fares also earn tier points?
  b) would all future bookings need to include BAEC number instead of Aer Club?
  c) would the Avios previously earned via AL automatically then go to BAEC account?
  Thanks

  • memesweeper says:

    3 Apr3 April 12:57

    a) no, economy earns
    b) yes for BA TPs
    c) no, you need to transfer (“combine”) them

    • Fay says:

      3 Apr3 April 13:33

      Thank you for your help 👍

• SussexTravels says:

  3 Apr3 April 10:54

  Great news that it’s finally happening. Just bad timing for me as Aer Lingus paused/quit/removed the Gatwick-Dublin route in the last week.

  • ADS says:

    4 Apr4 April 15:21

    i still can’t get my head around EI going from 5 flights a day to ZERO !

    why wouldn’t they just reduce down to 2 or 3 flights a day instead of just handing over the market to Ryanair

• allycat says:

  3 Apr3 April 12:06

  Here’s an interesting one for suggestions or comments: I have a trip booked MAN-DUB-PHL-DUB-MAN in May. It was all booked as Business on aerlingus.com using my normal aerclub account. The carriers are Emerald Airlines in “Y” Economy for MAN-DUB and DUB-MAN, Aer Lingus in “I” Business for DUB-PHL and American Airlines in “R” Business for PHL-DUB. Of course my aerclub / avios account number is currently locked into the three emerald / aer lingus sectors and the AA sector (which has a separate PRN). I cannot change the loyalty program or number online so will have to call aerlingus I guess.

  Anyone like to hazard a guess as to whether the trip will earn BA Tier Points (and how many) if I can get the call centre to change the loyalty program to BA and add my BAEC number? Using the ba website linked above it suggests 140TP for R class on AA PHL-DUB, but does not list anything for I class on AerLingus for DUB-PHL. The website suggests 20TP for the Y economy sectors but since the whole trip was booked as Business, should it get 40TP like the Exeter example Rob put above? All suggestions welcome …

  • apbj says:

    3 Apr3 April 12:30

    Per the BA Avios calculator, you will indeed get 20 TPs for the connecting flight and zero for the long-haul. As Rob notes, the calculator is probably wrong, but we’ll have to see.

    As for IT integration, it’s still more difficult than it should be to book UK connecting flights on EI; many are restricted to only certain routes (you can buy NQY-DUB-JFK but not eg NQY-DUB-LAX) and it doesn’t seem possible to book connecting Avios flights yet except the mainline routes eg DUB-MAN, DUB-LHR and the occasional DUB-EDI. But weirdly you can book nonsense such as EXT-BHD-EDI on BA.com without a problem!

  • memesweeper says:

    3 Apr3 April 12:59

    My guess would be probably:
    20+140+140+20

    if you’re unfortunate:
    20+0+140+20

    based on my experience with other carriers tagging Y onto business class bookings, you won’t get 40 TPs for the short haul.

• Ramsey says:

  3 Apr3 April 15:34

  It’s really disappointing that Aer Lingus are so inept that it’s almost impossible to find your fare type on their own website or whether it earns Tier points. I have done a dummy run Manchester to JFK and could not see what my fare type was never mind if it was eligible for tier points until I had entered all my details, selected flights and entered all my personal details. On the final payment screen, there are 5 hidden text boxes, one of which states Terms and Conditions and within that there’s another drop down of ‘fare rules’ with some details of Tier points (presumably Aer Lingus) but this doesn’t tell you the fare you are actually booking. Another hidden drop down menu gives you ‘Fare Basis Codes’ and for the flight I was looking at its IN2FE3EU – EI45. I presume this is an I fare code and not eligible for Tier Points. Earlier in your booking process is a choice for Business is ‘Business’ or ‘Business Flex’ – no mention of codes. That’s it. Only by digging through loads of info and drop downs can I find this info and only by reading this forum I find out it’s likely an I fare isnt eligible (and isn’t listed on BA Tier Point calculator). Incompetent at best, misleading or devious at worst.

  • PGR says:

    3 Apr3 April 17:01

    +1 and well said

  • apbj says:

    4 Apr4 April 12:42

    +1 – and as you say, it’s not at all obvious what fare bucket each marketing “type” might fall into. The minimum cheap economy fare for any date I randomly search LHR-DUB seems to consistently book into G class (fine, earns some Avios/TPs) but the lowest economy fare on sale DUB-LHR seems to consistently booking to P class (non-earning). How would anyone normal know this? And the I class exclusion is a glaring anomaly. Look at the amount of effort that’s gone into trying to upsell carry-on bags, insurance, seat selection etc – a very slick sales process, so clearly displaying fare types could be done if someone tried!

  • Niall says:

    6 Apr6 April 17:10

    Not disagreeing that it isn’t clear… but you have worked it out. You just did so later in the process than you needed to. The fare rules are visible before you have entered all your details.

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