Originally Posted by
gcfserendipity
I don’t think this is entirely accurate. I’ve been looking every day at dates as far out as possible on their site and there aren’t any available for those days either. It doesn’t seem like they released business seats right away which is why I’m asking. Just looking to see if anyone who has seen stuff pop up recently noticed a trend or anything like that.
First things first - Spring 2026 is only weeks away. These flights would have been released for mileage awards at the start of 2025 so it's not surprising that you are finding no availability now. They've been available to "purchase" using Avios for most of this year and it is therfore unsurprising that others got there ahead of you and picked the limited availability clean already.
(The "60 days out" thing only really seems to apply to shorthaul - though a quick look for DUB-AMS flights seems to suggest that, on this route at least currently, the window has been reduced to 30 days)
Aer Lingus doesn't seem to release further seats for redemption later on - they generally manage to fill the J cabin so there's usually no "need" for them to make further seats available (even if, as in the previous post, a request to upgrade into J results in RevMan deciding to make (a) seat(s) available for Avios).
Secondy, the reason you're not seeing award seats for dates "as far out as possible" is that the booking window has now run into the Winter 26/27 schedule - commencing on Sunday October 25 - so beyond that date no award availability is currently being offered. This is, however, an anomaly. (This issue was also noted in this thread -
October Mid Term Flight Schedule)
Although you will find (few) EI flights offered for sale on a small number of routes - including JFK and LHR for dates commencing 25OCT26 and further, you will actually see that EI is not currently even offering any service on any of its routes from 25OCT26 onwards -
this is the reason that award seats are not being offered, because there are no "normal" tickets loaded even in the revenue system so there are no seats available for redemption yet.
Award seats go on sale 330 days prior and therefore the Spring 2026 dates in which you are interested went on sale on progressive dates starting in Spring 2025
(Below is an example of booking a DUB-SFO ticket for Sun 25OCT26, the first day of the IATA NW 2026 season. No EI flights offered - only flights via London on BA/connecting to BA)