Avios and AerLingus Useless for Transatlantic Business?
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
Avios and AerLingus Useless for Transatlantic Business?
New to the forum and seems to be a great resource.
I have been struggling to make use of a lot of Avios miles on Aer Lingus for business class.
Seems economy availability is quite good, but there seems to be zero business availability ever.
(BOS-->DUB)
BA has plenty of connecting availability on similar routes and dates through the Avios site.
Aer Lingus always just economy only.
I also looked into an requesting an avios upgrade a after purchasing an economy ticket, but Aer Lingus will not answer upgrade availability questions until after one purchases a ticket, which is a bogus way of doing things.
BA seem to know how to work with the avios program, but aerlingus seem clueless.
So is this who Aer Lngus and avios thing just a sham and are people better off just avoiding their program if upgrades are what they are after, or am I just unlucky in what I am searching for? I have looked at Expert Flyer too and availability just not there.
I have been struggling to make use of a lot of Avios miles on Aer Lingus for business class.
Seems economy availability is quite good, but there seems to be zero business availability ever.
(BOS-->DUB)
BA has plenty of connecting availability on similar routes and dates through the Avios site.
Aer Lingus always just economy only.
I also looked into an requesting an avios upgrade a after purchasing an economy ticket, but Aer Lingus will not answer upgrade availability questions until after one purchases a ticket, which is a bogus way of doing things.
BA seem to know how to work with the avios program, but aerlingus seem clueless.
So is this who Aer Lngus and avios thing just a sham and are people better off just avoiding their program if upgrades are what they are after, or am I just unlucky in what I am searching for? I have looked at Expert Flyer too and availability just not there.
#2
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 688
Unfortunately the award business availability is quite poor for Aer Lingus. As standard 1 business class seat is released for each flight and as BOS-DUB is a popular route they can be snapped up. Sometimes more seats are made available closer to departure (if you look at flights within the next month) and once in a blue moon you'll find 2 seats available for avios booking but this is the exception rather than the rule. Upgrading via avios is again only possible if award seats are available so you are running into the same problem.
BA tend to have bigger business cabins and they as standard release 2 business seats for each flight for avios bookings and again more can open up closer to departure depending on loading etc. The way aer lingus work with avios.com is not ideal at all imo when booking flights. But avoiding the program as a result is maybe overkill as it is somewhat linked to BA's by being able to transfer avios freely between the two so if you prefer just use BAs booking system for flights by transferring your avios but this will not help you find any more business availability on aer lingus metal.
BA tend to have bigger business cabins and they as standard release 2 business seats for each flight for avios bookings and again more can open up closer to departure depending on loading etc. The way aer lingus work with avios.com is not ideal at all imo when booking flights. But avoiding the program as a result is maybe overkill as it is somewhat linked to BA's by being able to transfer avios freely between the two so if you prefer just use BAs booking system for flights by transferring your avios but this will not help you find any more business availability on aer lingus metal.
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
Thanks and appreciate your detailed repsonse.
It aligns with what i was seeing.
i think its fair to warn people that if collecting avios for use on aer lingus to upgrade to business on transatlantic, their program is best avoided, as they don't seem to be able to deliver on what they are advertising.
It has put me off getting their US credit card offer too, as they don't seem to be able to deliver on the benefits their card advertises.
It aligns with what i was seeing.
i think its fair to warn people that if collecting avios for use on aer lingus to upgrade to business on transatlantic, their program is best avoided, as they don't seem to be able to deliver on what they are advertising.
It has put me off getting their US credit card offer too, as they don't seem to be able to deliver on the benefits their card advertises.
#4
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 688
Yes I think that is fair, obviously aer lingus are not going to do that. I feel for people new or inexperienced using the avios program in general (EI,BA,IB) as most have the impression in the beginning you earn avios and can then get 'free' or close to free flights or get business class flights or upgrades when in fact the availability of business tickets is quite low and flights are far from free (I'm not sure how aware you are of the high fees applied to avios bookings). In certain cases on short haul flights it is actually cheaper to book a cash fare than use your avios and pay fees or that you'll find you are saving very little money using avios versus cash fare (small caveat here is avios fares are full fare tickets with baggage and cancellation benefits but more often than not you will not be needing these). The fact is, often to get good value use of your avios you need to be quite familiar with the scheme and also use forums like this or frequent flier dedicated websites like headforpoints and even then it can be a challenge. From my brief experience when I had AA status the value of miles was much more straight forward and closer to how you would assume from a beginner stand point how they work. I think the US carrier programs are superior in this way but none are without their own restrictions and limitations.
#6
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 7
Luckily most of my miles are on the chase reserve card which can be used for lots of useful things and covers cdw for irish rentals.
ill avoid the aerlingus credit card like the plague and use my remaining avios for transatlantic economy for people - 50% off.
The hassle of trying to spend hours trawling for non existant business flights does not appeal to me.
Between aerclub and this, they have really gone downhill...
ill avoid the aerlingus credit card like the plague and use my remaining avios for transatlantic economy for people - 50% off.
The hassle of trying to spend hours trawling for non existant business flights does not appeal to me.
Between aerclub and this, they have really gone downhill...
#7
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Canada, USA, Europe
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 31,452
Luckily most of my miles are on the chase reserve card which can be used for lots of useful things and covers cdw for irish rentals.
ill avoid the aerlingus credit card like the plague and use my remaining avios for transatlantic economy for people - 50% off.
The hassle of trying to spend hours trawling for non existant business flights does not appeal to me.
Between aerclub and this, they have really gone downhill...
ill avoid the aerlingus credit card like the plague and use my remaining avios for transatlantic economy for people - 50% off.
The hassle of trying to spend hours trawling for non existant business flights does not appeal to me.
Between aerclub and this, they have really gone downhill...
#9
Join Date: May 2007
Programs: BA Blue, EI Silver, Honours Gold, Marriott Gold
Posts: 1,209
With Avios you can spend on any oneworld airline as well as EI. BA generally do have reasonable availability for 2 seats in Club World. You will have to connect through LHR though. Alteratively you can book AA flights using avois too. Redeeming award seats isn't like paying cash, sadly you can't just use avois instead of cash, if a seat is for sale. I don't know of any airline FFP that allows that, you could part-pay with Avios, but that is, generally, terrible value.
#10
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: ORD/MDW
Programs: BA/AA/AS/B6/WN/ UA/HH/MR and more like 'em but most felicitously & importantly MUCCI
Posts: 19,719
...the availability of business tickets is quite low and flights are far from free... In certain cases on short haul flights it is actually cheaper to book a cash fare than use your avios and pay fees or that you'll find you are saving very little money using avios versus cash fare...
#11
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Not here; there!
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold
Posts: 29,588
#13
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 688
#14
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Edison, NJ
Programs: Hyatt Explorist
Posts: 110
You may want to look into transferring into Iberia, I didn’t have much trouble finding two off peak biz awards in March for 68k and $200 fees each to Madrid. That program doesn’t charge separately for each leg so connections aren’t prohibitive like with BA a lot of the time. Even if you can’t find an award all the way to Ireland you could probably find a cheap cash deal from Madrid.
#15
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Tyrone,EU
Programs: Avios Hunter
Posts: 2,812
The weird thing is that United seemingly have access to more EI award seats than BAEC/Avios has. The newly announced route DUB-MSP being an example.
When I checked last week, United had access to 4 biz award sets on each of 4 consecutive flights in Aug, Avios.com wasn't showing any biz award seats on any of those flights. One has to ask the logic in an IAG sister company having no inventory, whilst united have good inventory.
And this isn't just a fluke. A year ago when I was searching for 2xbiz seats for MIA-DUB, I got them using UA miles on united, on the same flight, Avios.com was only showing a single biz award seat.
When I checked last week, United had access to 4 biz award sets on each of 4 consecutive flights in Aug, Avios.com wasn't showing any biz award seats on any of those flights. One has to ask the logic in an IAG sister company having no inventory, whilst united have good inventory.
And this isn't just a fluke. A year ago when I was searching for 2xbiz seats for MIA-DUB, I got them using UA miles on united, on the same flight, Avios.com was only showing a single biz award seat.
Last edited by tangey; Sep 25, 2018 at 3:17 am