Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

(GONE?) Book Manchester to New York in Aer Lingus business class for £850 return

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

Alaska Airlines has been offering good deals on its partner Aer Lingus for some time now (see here, for example). It’s not entirely clear why – they do not seem to be mistake fares, because they wouldn’t have carried on being offered this cheaply.

It’s not a codeshare issue, because the tickets are being issued with Aer Lingus flight numbers.

Whatever the reason, there are some good deals out there.

EDIT: This deal seems to have died overnight, sorry. We published it during the afternoon yesterday. Well done to those who booked.

Book Manchester to New York in Aer Lingus business class for £850 return

Via the Alaska Airlines website, you can book the direct Manchester to New York flight on Aer Lingus for £850 return in business class.

(Aer Lingus UK flies DIRECT and non-stop from Manchester to New York, and indeed Barbados and Orlando. You do not stop or change aircraft in Dublin.)

If £850 is too expensive, you can get it cheaper (around £675) by starting your trip in Dublin and booking Dublin – Manchester – New York – Manchester – Dublin. This seems a bit unnecessary to me if you can fly direct for £850, assuming you can get to Manchester easily, but the option is there.

You do not need to stay over a weekend to get this fare.

Here’s an example for a midweek trip in October:

Book Manchester to New York in Aer Lingus business class for £850 return

The fare is $1,147 return, so around £850. Booking direct via Aer Lingus would be £1,750 return.

You have 24 hours to cancel if you change your mind.

You can book for pretty much the entire forward schedule, until next May.

You can credit the flight to Aer Lingus AerClub or The British Airways Club to earn Avios and a handful of tier points. The British Airways Club will give you 1.5 Avios x miles flown, with no tier bonus. AerClub will give you 4 Avios per £1 on the base fare element.

There are no bargains to Barbados or Orlando

Before you ask, there are no similar deals on the other two direct Aer Lingus routes from Manchester, to Barbados and Orlando.

(EDIT: the comments say that there is some Orlando availability in early 2026 at a similar rate to this.)

Check out our Manchester flight reviews

Aer Lingus generally operates an A330 from Manchester to New York.

Here is a review by Rhys of Manchester to Barbados on an Aer Lingus A330.

Conclusion

We don’t normally run ‘mistake fare’ articles. The fare is often dead by the time you read it, and people who book usually find their tickets are cancelled.

This one feels different because Alaska Airlines has been selling heavily discounted Aer Lingus flights for some time. However, just in case, I wouldn’t book a hotel or any other non-refundable costs around a trip until nearer departure.

You need to book on the Alaska Airlines website.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 70,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (July 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:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

30,000 Avios and the famous annual Companion Voucher voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express Credit Card

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

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.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 on the FREE standard card and 1 Avios per £1 on the Pro card. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 0.8 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

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

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business Card

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

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.

The American Express Business Platinum Card

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

The American Express Business Gold Card

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

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

Category

Aer Lingus and AerClub

Comments (66)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Ed says:
    10 Jun10 June 17:03

    Assuming 1.5x miles flown then surely two of these returns makes for BA gold, or am I missing something?

    • Rob says:
      10 Jun10 June 17:17

      BA status is 1 per £1 exc taxes, so you’ll be lucky to get 300 tier points from this!

      • Ed says:
        10 Jun10 June 17:20

        Ah – misread article and assumed the 1.5x was for nTP not avios

        • Rob says:
          10 Jun10 June 17:24

          Wasn’t 100% clear, have now tweaked.

        • Jim Lovejoy says:
          11 Jun11 June 05:59

          If you’re ready to give up on BA status and go for AS status, it’s 2.5 status miles per mile for transoceanic business class bought through AS. 2 returns would probably get mid tier one-world status.
          AS has it’s own annoying little status quirks so beware.

      • Kessy says:
        10 Jun10 June 20:38

        I thought both Alaska airlines and Aer Lingus earn nTPs based on percentage of mileage with BAC?

        • Rob says:
          10 Jun10 June 20:42

          Hmmm …. would need to check.

          • Adam M says:
            11 Jun11 June 02:56

            For booking class i, isn’t this 25% of the miles flown, so man-jfk is around 2250 tier points if you credit your ba account. Or am i misunderstanding.

          • Adam M says:
            11 Jun11 June 02:59

            Sorry around 800 tier points. Is what I meant.

    • George K says:
      10 Jun10 June 17:17

      I don’t think you are. I think this was a mistake. This is what tripped me up to.

  • BSI1978 says:
    10 Jun10 June 17:24

    Happy to stand corrected but is this not simply further evidence of cooling / reduced interest in travelling to the States presently?

    • Pat says:
      10 Jun10 June 18:46

      When they add a new fare the system doesn’t automatically add the YQ. That’s all it is.

    • Barry cutters says:
      10 Jun10 June 21:18

      No – flights are just as busy as usual

      • kevin86 says:
        10 Jun10 June 21:54

        Not based on total US passenger numbers, which are down. Flights are obvs not as busy as usual.

      • John says:
        10 Jun10 June 22:09

        If there are fewer flights overall, the remaining ones will continue to be busy

        Americans are still travelling abroad

      • davefl says:
        11 Jun11 June 04:37

        Inside the US maybe, not TATL. The EI flight to Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago was 1/3 full in business and 2/3 in economy

  • JoeyJoJo says:
    10 Jun10 June 17:31

    Well, that’ll destroy that sweet deal

  • BlairWaldorfSalad says:
    10 Jun10 June 18:05

    There seemed to be no option for Aer Club in FF# when I booked. I will liaise with Aer Lingus about it

  • RC says:
    10 Jun10 June 20:25

    This is IAG /oneworkd where everything is ticketyboo.
    So definitely not backfilling seats by back channels to try and avoid headline discounts..?
    Hopefully more value fares to come.

    • Niall says:
      10 Jun10 June 21:13

      These fares have been available since long before any cooling of demand for US flights.

  • Adam M says:
    11 Jun11 June 02:45

    I booked it last night for £1519 for 2 people.
    The flight showed up on the Aer Lingus site and I was able to put my BA numbers against it. Added the additional bags etc.
    later in the evening the flight disappeared from my account and now just says there is an error. Will call them today to find out more.

  • John says:
    11 Jun11 June 06:17

    I am not really sure if posting such articles is really best use of authors time.
    Who in their right mind would ean to travel to Trump’s America on fast tract to authoritarianism and other serious issues? Noone I know. The only people I know who had planes, cancelled their tickets.
    If people still do there,that’s crazy.

    • Nico says:
      11 Jun11 June 06:29

      Not a fan of his, but if you restrict your holidays based on politics, you can’t leave western Europe pretty much

    • Rich says:
      11 Jun11 June 06:45

      Most people are actually in their right mind happy to travel to the States at the moment with their experience totally unaffected by the President of the day. Plenty are looking to escape the UK at the moment because of gov’t policies though.

      Politics John, most people rise above it when travelling though.

    • Nigel says:
      11 Jun11 June 07:29

      Always someone gotta bring politics in to it.

      Typically it’s the people that support democracy until their preferred candidate doesn’t win.
      The same people will be bad mouthing reform in the UK by basically suggesting that people that vote for them don’t deserve an opinion or option to instigate change due to being unhappy with how things are run currently

    • Rob says:
      11 Jun11 June 07:32

      No fall off in US numbers according to the airlines, once you adjust for Easter. Need to see what happens after summer when those who booked 6 months in advance have travelled.

      • Luke says:
        11 Jun11 June 12:23

        But prices are falling to match fixed supply with falling demand

      • kevin86 says:
        11 Jun11 June 18:23

        The official TSA number show that’s nonsense

        • Luke says:
          11 Jun11 June 20:31

          If you look at the TSA figures it appears that you are looking at a current year on year downfall of around 6%. If you make the bold assumption that Americans are travelling just as much and make up 50% (I’m sure somebody has the correct %) then the downturn from the rest of the world is about 12%.

  • Pat says:
    11 Jun11 June 06:25

    Looks like they finally fixed it. I had previously highlighted the flaw in their system to AS. Let’s hope when they file a new fare they add the YQ automatically this time.

    • r* says:
      11 Jun11 June 06:34

      Other that to show how much of a dick you are, why would you ever post saying you contacted an airline to tell them they had mispriced?

      • Rich says:
        11 Jun11 June 06:48

        Maybe he works for Amadeus or something and is duty bound to report such things?

        If not, I agree with your comment!

      • Mickyb says:
        11 Jun11 June 08:57

        Why would you ever post on HFP to call someone a dick? Other than to show how much of a …. you are, of course.

        • r* says:
          11 Jun11 June 09:37

          Forget to switch usernames or something?

          Bit bizarre to defend someone who says ‘lets hope they add the YQ next time’ when literally no one would hope that.

          Posting gloating about how they hope ppl wont be able to book a cheap fare anymore is the actions of a dick.

          • Mickyb says:
            11 Jun11 June 11:10

            “Literally no one would hope that”? So now Pat is “literally no one”?

            “Gloating”? I think you’re projecting there.

            Perhaps Pat thought the mistake fare wouldn’t be honoured and that it would just create hassle for everyone involved. Perhaps he doesn’t think that you getting a cheap airfare at the expense of Alaska’s shareholders (and, who knows – possibly someone’s job too) is for the greater good. Perhaps he’s a shareholder himself.

            Perhaps, like me, he’s neurodivergent, and has a very strong sense of fairness and a desire for things to be “correct”, even if that doesn’t favour him. If this is the case then your comment amounts to bullying.

        • HampshireHog says:
          11 Jun11 June 20:40

          Perhaps you’re a dick too @mickybe? Either trolls or peeps who would I suspect wind up even our favourite nay sayer JDB

          • Socrates says:
            12 Jun12 June 10:31

            Cephalophallusism isn’t a recognised neurodivergence, Micky.

    • Thomas says:
      11 Jun11 June 13:02

      #trollingalwaysworks.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 50,000 bonus points (worth 50,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Special offer: Get 30,000 bonus Hilton Honors points until 14th August 2025

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? Get the only free credit card with points which convert to Avios

Get points worth 20,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!