flyaxa

Not news I am sure, but I have done some pretty extensive testing and I think Aer Lingus is only allocating 2 awards now for Economy. Period.

mtimmer

Not sure if there was an exception due to the particular flights that I was looking at, but I did manage to book 2 seats on BOS-DUB-CDG for 17K Avios points each. Total taxes were $136 and had a very nice agent that actually volunteered to take off the phone booking charge before I even asked. Transferred points from Chase to Avios that went through while I was talking to the agent.

stifle

This post is incorrect. EI seats (on whatever route) cannot be "seen" for Avios redemption, as Avios redemptions on EI can only be done by phone.

You may have seen apparent J award seats on QF/UA/etc. but what would have happened had you phoned up to book is anybody's guess.

rcurry01

I respectfully disagree. I can only tell you what I know from my experience, and I would say that I am experienced in using Avios on EI. I have booked BOS-DUB/SNN and vice versa in both Y and J for seven flights and a total of 14 tickets all using Avios. If the UA search engine showed availability, there was at least 1 seat bookable using Avios on that flight in the cabin that UA indicated. This has held true every time I have called. Now, the quantity of seats shown on the UA booking engine is blatantly wrong for Avios. The quantity is anyone's guess until you call.

For the few times that I have asked about seats on days UA shows no availability, the same has held true for using Avios.

If your experience has been to the contrary, I would be interested to hear about it.

MrBill64

Just another data point proving the discrepancy between EI availability on UA and what is available through BA . Checked UA for EI availability in late Aug for BOS-DUB and DUB-BOS. UA showed 4 seats in Y for each trip. I called BA and booked 2 seats in Y using Avios. Hung up the phone and went back and checked the UA site for availability and there was nothing available on my dates.

edy4eva

Recheck availability in 24 hours. If no one snagged the other 2 they should pop back.

MrBill64

Well the other 2 seats could have been snagged but it has been 48hrs and still no availability.

rcurry01

When I booked back in August for July 2015, UA was showing 4 J seats, I called BA and they only saw 2. I booked one, and then United Showed zero. I checked for several days and it kept showing zero. I did not call back, so I don't know if the seat disappeared from BA as well.

thegingninj

I'm looking for one seat in any class on 3/15 BOS-DUB or JFK-DUB with avios. I've tried both UA and Qantas award search with no availability.

Do I have any chance of something opening up?

If so, rather than checking every day - If I purchase expert flyer, will it notify me if a seat opens up? This may be an EF question but it seems pertinent to this thread. Thanks

nrdk

Somewhat of a chance but you're getting rather close.

I would actually suggest doing both. EF is nice however the alerts can be slow, and as well it sometimes seems to not show availability that United shows at times.

Then again, the ultimate test is actually talking to BA, as there's been numerous reports and I've run into it a time or two that they cannot see the availability that seems to show on EF or UA.

thegingninj

Very helpful - thanks for the info!

endingstrife

Aer Lingus just released a lot of J availability via BA. I just called them to book 2 seats RT and there was availability in pretty much all of August and September.

pmblinn

This is great info, endingstrife. Can you share out of which EI fare bucket J awards book?

JAP

That's the weekend of Paddy's Festival / Paddy's Day (17th March) so I'd imagine that loads are high & not much chance of it opening up for awards at this stage, but YYMV.... Good luck!

thegingninj

Thanks, that's partly why I'm going! My original itinerary was to LHR, but then I realized Paddy's day was that week and decided to start my trip in DUB!

EDIT: I found space on JFK-SNN for 20k avios, not as good a deal but I'll take what I can get at this point! Booked via BA over the phone. Now trying to figure out seat selection