On 11/13 called BA to book award flight on EI. Expertflyer and United both showed 2 U-class tickets available for DUB>BOS. The agent confirmed he saw the seats available too but when we went to book the award Aer Lingus' system wouldn't confirm. The BA agent tried to override it but couldn't. He said that Aer Lingus had an antiquated system and to make matters worse they are in the process of changing computer systems so booking flights on EI have been a nightmare the past couple of weeks. He told me to call back in a week. After the call, I checked Expert Flyer and the award seats were gone.

I called back the next day 11/14 after noticing the award seats were showing up again on Expertflyer and United. This time a female agent at BA was able to make it through the booking process, take my credit card payment for taxes and issue me a BA confirmation number. She said I would receive an email confirmation shortly.

On 11/15 I noticed I hadn't received an email confirmation and the flight was not showing up on my BA Exec Club itinerary and my Avios were still there. I called BA again and the agent initially couldn't find the flight. When I gave him my confirmation number he was finally able to see it and saw that my credit card transaction did go through, but that Aer Lingus has not "accepted" the booking yet. The agent spoke with his supervisor and the supervisor recommended I wait two more days for Aer Lingus to confirm and withdraw my Avios.

Update: 11/17 Got a call from British Airways saying Aer Lingus couldn't run my credit card to finish the award booking."No worries, all is fine, your seats are still safe but I just need your number again." This is funny since I called my credit card company and they said that the original credit card transaction was authorized so they shouldn't need to rerun the card. Still no ticket confirmation.