Aer Lingus Gold Circle Club - EI Summer 2013 Award Seat Availability

Trying to book next April with EI flying EDI-JFK return but unable to do so as flights from UK to DUB are not in the system. Phoned reservations but were not helpful.
Anybody with any ideas when they will be available. Seems silly that I can book DUB-JFK but not the short connecting leg, must be losing them some business.
Thanks

Must be a bug, from LHR it works fine

Seems to be the regional flights because its the same for GLA and MAN.

Unlikely, as MAN is operated by Aer Lingus mainline, not regional. It looks to be that some of the schedules aren't finalised and loaded yet.

Certain routes such as AMS, LHR, JFK, BOS, MCO, ORD are on sale all the time as the system is rolled on. The officail release date for summer 2013 will most lightly be Oct/Nov however other UK routes will be released most lightly over the next few weeks and mid september will be the latest.

Will see if I can get a exact date.

Thanks it would be appreciated.

I am in same boat for summer 2013; I want to fly EI from CDG to DUB to connect to EI from DUB across the pond to JFK/BOS.

Will CDG to DUB flights show up later in Sept/Oct/Nov or are they pulling the flights?

They won't be pulled, the schedule (as above) is probably just not finalised and loaded yet.

Certain routes such as AMS, LHR, JFK, BOS, MCO, ORD

I guess we have the KLM/BA/UA codeshares to thank for that.

Summer 2013 has started to be released. EDI-DUB-USA flights will be on sale soon.

EDI-DUB now released all EI Regional. No afternoon flight DUB-EDI which is not ideal if on the late flight out of JFK. GLA not much better.

Would expect lots of changes and the afternoon flight readded lather this year. It dosn't realy matter as it won't connect with the 15.45 to JFK. JFK has moved from 17.10 due to terminal change at JFK.

I just had my summer 2013 DUB-ORD segment moved by four hours(!!). 3:45PM departure changed to an 11:25AM departure.

Three questions:
(a) Does this happen often? Should I expect the possibility of another major change between now and next year? (I'm well-used to minor changes...a flight moving a few minutes one direction or another. But nothing like this...)
(b) Is there a point in time when the schedule is considered more firm, making it safe to book connecting segments? ORD-onward will obviously not be on EI, so EI's future flight changes won't win me any sympathy with that airline, whichever one it is.
(c) Does a four-hour change to the flight entitle me to a free change? These are partner award seats, booked with Avios, and we'd ideally move our flight to one day later as getting to Ireland in time for this flight is going to be difficult.

Thanks!

(a) this kind of thing happens quite frequently, with all airlines. I recently had a Thai Airways flight cancelled 5 months ahead, and was moved onto a flight about 10-12 hours later.
(b) that's always a risk...it's always advisable to try and book travel on a single ticket
(c) If you ring up and ask, I can't see that they would mind moving you.

(a) this kind of thing happens quite frequently, with all airlines. I recently had a Thai Airways flight cancelled 5 months ahead, and was moved onto a flight about 10-12 hours later.
(b) that's always a risk...it's always advisable to try and book travel on a single ticket
(c) If you ring up and ask, I can't see that they would mind moving you.

I've had it happen a lot on all sorts of airlines...just not this major of a change. I attempted to book on one itin, but there was no way to do it. I was told I had to book all pieces individually unfortunately... I will ring them up and ask about a switch to the following day. Thanks!

I wouldn't expect any further changes now. This mess was caused by a mix up in ORD.

(The extra capacity is due to the leasing of an A330 from United, as mentioned in another thread)

Aer Lingus will add an extra 112,000 seats on its transatlantic services for summer 2013, representing a 15% increase in capacity, in response to a spike in passenger demand.

The carrier will add three additional services between Dublin and Boston, an additional four services to Chicago and one extra service to Orlando, Florida,
which will operate between June 17 and August 10. These will give Aer Lingus 90 additional services on the Boston–Dublin and 120 services between Dublin and Chicago compared with the total in 2011, it said.

The airline has a number of codeshare agreements for onward connections in the US and Canada with partners, including United, JetBlue for connections between Boston and New York and a recently signed interline partnership with Air Canada.

In 2009, Aer Lingus suspended winter services between Shannon and Chicago and reduced Shannon–Boston services from daily flights to four-times a week, due to weak demand.

Across the rest of its summer schedule, Aer Lingus is planning to add or resume services between Dublin and Corfu, Dublin and Copenhagen and between Shannon and Faro and Belfast George Best and Palma, Mallorca.

It also plans to increase frequencies on 14 routes from Dublin and Cork, including to London Gatwick, Paris, Berlin, Munich and Nice.

(The extra capacity is due to the leasing of an A330 from United, as mentioned in another thread)

The A330 is not being leased from United but is the aircraft EI used for the now defunct EI/UA joint venture on the IAD-MAD route.

That's what I thought - but the Aviation Week article (http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/avd_11_21_2012_p01-02-519533.xml) suggested otherwise.

I want LGW-ORK back.

Booked my flights EDI-DUB-JFK-DUB-EDI next April/May just after the EDI-DUB sector became available. Booked the early flight back from JFK as there was no early afternoon flight DUB-EDI, now see EI have changed their schedules again and the afternoon flight has been reinstated. A bit miffed but have decided to stay with the early flight, should be home by 9am but will miss out on the lounge in Dublin both coming and going and if this year is anything to go by no lounge in EDI.
On another note see that EI have started charging for pre-assigned seats on connecting flights even on a Business Class booking but BA are on the same road so can't complain too much.

Aer Lingus additions:

* New summer flights for 2013: Shannon-Faro (three flights weekly, May 1-Sept 13); Dublin-Corfu (once weekly, Mar 31-Oct 27); Dublin-Copenhagen (six flights weekly, year-round); Belfast-Palma (two flights weekly, Mar 31-Oct 26).

Additional frequencies:

* Dublin to: London Gatwick (four additional flights); Paris (four); Berlin (two); Zurich (two); Munich, Bilbao, Lanzarote, Santiago de Compostela (from Jul 2), Nice, Perpignan, Lisbon, Dubrovnik (all one additional flight per week).

* Chicago (four), Boston (three), Orlando (one).

* Cork to: Barcelona (one additional flight per week), Faro (one).

With all of these additions, shouldn't there be more availability for award flights right now? I booked ORD > DUB on June 26 with MileagePlus miles (EI122) and now another friend would like to book the same flight, but not able to find it anymore. As a matter of fact I can't find any EI flights in June from ORD > DUB. Anyone know what's up?

Aer Lingus's reward fight arrangements are not easily comprehensible.

I know that with AA, if you can find a flight on a partner (like Air Berlin), it is bookable at a MileSAAver rate even if it isn't listen on AA.com. Do you know if that's true for United/Aer Lingus? I can find normal fares for EI122 but no award availability on united.com... It's like the turned off all the awards for this summer off.

With all of these additions, shouldn't there be more availability for award flights right now? I booked ORD > DUB on June 26 with MileagePlus miles (EI122) and now another friend would like to book the same flight, but not able to find it anymore. As a matter of fact I can't find any EI flights in June from ORD > DUB. Anyone know what's up?

Interesting... I looked yesterday for a family member for ORD-DUB and couldn't find anything in August. They were looking because I'd recommended they do so - even pointed them to Award Nexus to make sure they had found seats before calling BA to redeem Avios. I had no problems at all booking 5 seats together for July outbound / Aug inbound back in November.

I had been praising EI for having some real availability, even in the summer. I hope it's just natural booking demand as people planned their summer trips over the holiday break, not a change in course by EI to cut back on the award seats.

I know that with AA, if you can find a flight on a partner (like Air Berlin), it is bookable at a MileSAAver rate even if it isn't listen on AA.com. Do you know if that's true for United/Aer Lingus? I can find normal fares for EI122 but no award availability on united.com... It's like the turned off all the awards for this summer off.

I don't know much about the UA/EI relationship, but the traditional way we've searched for EI awards is through QF.

Yeah, that's a bit wonky...searching a Oneworld carrier when your later intent is to redeem *A miles...but that's how we've found the seats in the past. I've done it via Award Nexus but some people just sign up for a Qantas FF account and search on their site.

Find your seats via QF, then phone BA. That's the way we've done it with Avios. Probably going to be the same with United. United's pretty good at showing online awards for their true alliance members but probably doesn't show EI.

United's pretty good at showing online awards for their true alliance members but probably doesn't show EI.

I did book my direct ORD-DUB award flight on United.com in early November, so I know they do show EI flights.

After contacting United and Aer Lingus, it seems like there is "no more award availability" for ORD-DUB. I didn't look super thoroughly, but I can't find ANY direct flights between ORD-DUB for any dates on United.com or Qantas between Feb-Aug. I was able to find some that connect through Boston on several dates, but none that are direct like the one I booked in November. This seems really strange, that suddenly all EI award availability ORD-DUB vanished. Could this be some kind of issue on EI's end?

Anyone know what might be up? I am wondering if I should have my friend just book one of the Air Canada flights even though it is a longer overall travel time with a connection in Toronto.

EI has a very strange approach to making award space available. I'd book something else if I were you.

I did book my direct ORD-DUB award flight on United.com in early November, so I know they do show EI flights.

That's good to know...saves me the login to Award Nexus when I want to look up EI.

After contacting United and Aer Lingus, it seems like there is "no more award availability" for ORD-DUB. I didn't look super thoroughly, but I can't find ANY direct flights between ORD-DUB for any dates on United.com or Qantas between Feb-Aug. I was able to find some that connect through Boston on several dates, but none that are direct like the one I booked in November. This seems really strange, that suddenly all EI award availability ORD-DUB vanished. Could this be some kind of issue on EI's end?

This is troubling. :( If you look for February and are seeing zilch, that makes me think they've done something quite strange indeed. Even on stingy carriers like US, you can usually get winter seats to Europe if you want 'em. Yeah, even 4-6 weeks from the travel date.

Anyone know what might be up? I am wondering if I should have my friend just book one of the Air Canada flights even though it is a longer overall travel time with a connection in Toronto.

Probably. I recommended to my family member that they turn their attention to *A since there's still some decent UA and LH availability for when they want to travel. (End destination is Nice so whether they transit DUB or FRA/MUC doesn't really matter.)

I'm still holding back another 200,000 BA for a 2014 Europe trip, hoping to do it again via DUB. Going to be pretty disappointed if this avenue to Europe disappears. It is (was?) our only good way to get to Europe with Avios.

I was THIS close to pulling the EI BOS-DUB trigger for June but held off until we had the intra-Europe flights taken care of. Aarghhhh.

Are there any EI employees on FT that can give us indications whether award space will open up for this summer, ex-BOS, -JFK or -ORD? Seems weird that EI would increase available seats ex-BOS and then slam the award door shut altogether. It would be great to know soon, so I and others can make alternate plans.

(At least I've got my Park Hyatt Vendome rooms reserved...so I don't need to go to Ireland...but I'd really like to see Dublin)

Unfortunately, EI seems to use a room full of monkeys with typewriters to decide on award inventory availability - and it does just zero out completely, from time to time. I'm not entirely confident that you'll see it open up again in the time frame you're looking at, given historical precedents, but all it take is someone to chuck a banana in to the cage for the script to change again.

I'd work on Plan B, while keeping an eye open for Plan A to come back to life.

Has anyone here successfully booked a EI business award seat BOS-DUB recently using United miles? When I check the United.com award calendar there are plenty of saver/standard economy seats available but not a single business seat until the end of the schedule. I looked at a few sample Expertflyer dates and got nothing. Do I need to call/call often to try to get seats or do these seats simply not exist?

I did book my direct ORD-DUB award flight on United.com in early November, so I know they do show EI flights.

After contacting United and Aer Lingus, it seems like there is "no more award availability" for ORD-DUB. I didn't look super thoroughly, but I can't find ANY direct flights between ORD-DUB for any dates on United.com or Qantas between Feb-Aug. I was able to find some that connect through Boston on several dates, but none that are direct like the one I booked in November. This seems really strange, that suddenly all EI award availability ORD-DUB vanished. Could this be some kind of issue on EI's end?

Anyone know what might be up? I am wondering if I should have my friend just book one of the Air Canada flights even though it is a longer overall travel time with a connection in Toronto.

Well lookie there, .bomb shows plenty of EI ORD-DUB and BOS-DUB space for the summer. Haen't checked ex-JFK yet. Me thinks I will jump on this right away.

J or Y?

J or Y?

J. No Y. But I'm flying with our family of 4, so a 6 hour TATL J flight isn't that big of a deal to save an extra 100K Avios.

i remember what UA.com shows for EI biz seats aren't a 1 to 1 match of what BA can grab... anyone with contrary ideas?

just checked on .bomb again, but no J showing BOS-DUB...

just checked on .bomb again, but no J showing BOS-DUB...

My bad. Meant to say Y, no J.