Big changes appear to be coming to the Aer Lingus credit card

If you live in Ireland, you are able to apply for the Bank of Ireland Aer Credit Card from Aer Lingus, which earns Avios.

Whilst there is no announcement yet on the Bank of Ireland website, the card appears to be undergoing a complete overhauled later this year. The document showing the details has now been removed from the website however.

Here is the official website for the card.

What benefits does the Aer Credit Card currently offer?

What you have at the moment is an airline card with a very low level of mileage earning but which is strong on benefits.

This makes sense in an environment of capped interchange fees, but clearly isn’t working too well in terms of attracting customers.

This is what you CURRENTLY get:

Avios benefits:

• 1 Avios for every €4 you spend on the card

• 1 Avios for every €1 you spend with Aer Lingus

Non-Avios benefits:

• Two free Aer Lingus tickets EVERY YEAR for spending €5,000 on the card.  You receive two free tickets to any European Aer Lingus destination from Dublin, Cork, Shannon or Belfast.  You need to pay taxes, fees and charges.  The vouchers are triggered as soon as you hit €5,000 and are valid for 12 months.  

• Two Fast Track and Priority Boarding passes every year when travelling on Aer Lingus.  Nice to have, but not hugely valuable.

• Two lounge passes.  Each year you get two lounge passes to use at Dublin, Cork, Shannon or Belfast.  This is worth €60+.

• Worldwide multi-trip travel insurance for a family including winter sports.  ‘Free’ travel insurance from banks tends to vary from good to pretty useless.  The insured limits appear to be low but it does cover you up to the age of 80.  Bank of Ireland claims that the policy is ‘worth’ €385.  I am sure that comparable cover could be found for less although it may well justify the annual card fee.

Note that there is no sign-up bonus. Occasionally there will be a 5,000 Avios incentive but nothing is running at the moment.

The ‘two free tickets per year’ benefit had some interesting quirks:

• Aer Lingus was blocking out two seats per flight for cardholders, separate to the Avios reward allocation

• You could only redeem by putting in a request for specific dates and routes – someone at Aer Lingus would then manually check your request and email you back

• Tickets came with a free carry-on bag but you had to pay for checked baggage

• You had to book at least 30 days before travel

• Taxes and charges were still due, which took away most of the value at off-peak times

• There were a lot of blackout dates which reduced your opportunity to redeem at peak times and get genuine value

What is changing?

Bank of Ireland has asked us not to quote the specific details of what was in the document due to regulatory issues, since nothing has yet been communicated to customers.

However, if the changes are as outlined we will see:

• an improvement in the Avios earn rate

• a change to the policy of ‘no sign-up bonus except during promotions’

• a big change in the benefits package, which would see the annual benefits for cardholders skewing more sharply towards additional Avios rewards

It looks surprisingly good and I don’t think existing cardholders will be disappointed if this is the actual package that is launched. Some of our UK readers may even be a bit jealous.

Conclusion

If the eventual benefits package turns out to be what was leaked, it will substantially increase the value offered by the Aer Lingus credit card.

It would be especially good for AerClub elite members, who get little benefit from most of the ‘soft’ benefits of the existing package because they are already included.

For now, the package as advertised on the Bank of Ireland website remains unchanged and there is no published date for changes to go live.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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.