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I need to book business flight from Birmingham to Chicago with onward travel to Flint, MI. Looking at Aer Lingus via Dublin – would it be best to attach the AerClub ref to the booking, or the BAEC? I’ve also been quite surprised by the enormous price difference when pricing up on Aer Lingus and BA!
Crediting to AerClub earns you Avios and AerClub tier points
Crediting to BAEC earns you Avios only
I’m of the view that AerClub Silver (the entry level elite tier) is quite useful and since one never knows when one will end up flying EI again, might as well credit to AerClub and bank the TPs.
Combine My Avios lets you eventually pool any Avios earned across schemes.
Assuming you’re not bothered about Lingus tier points, it depends on two things:
*a heavily discounted business class ticket earns nothing in BA so you must credit to Aer Lingus
*otherwise it depends on fare, as Lingus gives Avios based on spend whilst BA is based on distance – if its a full fare ticket Lingus may be betterAs BA want around £1500 more than Aer Lingus for exactly the same flights, I think AL will be the way to go!
The most important point is you’ll pass US immigration in Dub and arrive at ORD as a domestic passenger potentially saving you a couple of hours at Chicago (shortening your connection time).
51st and Green the post pre-clear lounge is a nice place to be, much better than galleries at LHR.
Additionally EI give you free wifi which worked for the full journey. I used Teams and email all the way across with barely any interruption.
I have just got back from my Chicago trip and can confirm that the pre clearance facility is great! My only issue is that my connecting flight from Birmingham was delayed by an hour so I only just managed to scrape through. Bursting into tears helped 😳 I will certainly use that routing again although I will try to allow longer connection times. I’d like to see 51st & Green for a start! I can also confirm that the Swissport lounge Aer Lingus use in Chicago is pants
Agreed, probably the worst lounge I’ve ever seen. I think they’ll change it in 2025 when the construction is scheduled to finish at that terminal at ORD. Don’t undertand why they don’t use the BA lounge.
According to the lounge pass info I was supposed to be in the BA lounge but told at check in they’d changed it. Most disappointing!
I had exactly the same experience in June, BA on the printed lounge pass, tried to get in and was refused.
The BA lounge at ORD can barely cope with the number of passengers on ita own flights – especially when the A380 is usee – let alone those people on partner airlines wanting access via OW rules (and remember EI isn’t in one world)
There is a thread on the BA board on flyertalk with people reporting they have been refused access due to ‘capacity’when they are flying on a partner airline.
And this won’t be rectified until the terminal expansions and airline shuffles take place at ORD over the next few years.
Ei deploy an ex Qatar a330 on one of daily rotations to ORD so you might want to avoid that one
No WiFi, seats are awful , barely functioning IFE
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