Is Aer Lingus blocking Avios redemption flights within 60 days of departure (again)?

It’s back – the 60 day block on booking Aer Lingus redemptions with Avios.

In November 2023, we reported how Aer Lingus was blocking Avios redemptions made within 60 days of the date of travel.

Within two days of our story, Aer Lingus had a change of heart and the cut-off was moved to six days.

Now it’s changed back.

This isn’t good news, clearly.

Here’s what I found two nights ago. On 23rd June (this search was done on Thursday 24th April), there was a lot of Aer Lingus availability between Heathrow and Dublin:

However, if I jumped back 24 hours to 22nd June, inside the 60 day window, there was nothing. Not a single Aer Lingus seat on any of the many flights. There’s nothing for any day before that either. All you see are BA flights:

Here is the real proof.

As I said, the screenshot for 23rd June was taken on 24th April. I am writing this on 25th April. When I go back to 23rd June today, this is what I see for Aer Lingus flights:

…. nothing. Only flights on British Airways. All availability for the four flights in the top screenshot above was pulled overnight.

If this is a new Aer Lingus policy, it’s obviously not one to like. 60 days is, frankly, a very arbitrary deadline.

As I said originally, when Aer Lingus trialled this in November 2023 it rolled back within a couple of days. Let’s hope it sees sense again in 2025.

For clarity …. you can still redeem Avios for Aer Lingus flights using ‘Part Pay With Avios’. This is where you can get roughly 0.5p per Avios to reduce the cost of a cash flight booked on aerlingus.com. These redemptions are poor value for your Avios though, especially in premium cabins.