mahg33ta

Hi there- I'm a relative newbie to all of this but hoping someone experienced can point me in the right direction.

I would like to book an award ticket from Boston to Dublin. I have no prior relationship with Aer Lingus or Avios.

I do have a ton of chase points that I understand I can move into Avios. However, when I try to book a ticket, it only shows me $ cost.
I then signed up for AerClub and tried again. It now has a button to pay with Avios but when I hit it it shows I have 0 balance; not enough to buy ticket. It still doesn't tell me how many I need.

I'm reluctant to move points from Chase to Avios without knowing how many I will need as I know it's a one-way street and not sure when/if I'd ever use them again. Any advice? I found a "BA Avios calculator" website and tried that.... it gave me a range of 22.5 - 35, and not even sure that applies to Aer Lingus.

I also have a bunch of Alaska Air miles, and googling has showed me I can use them to buy tickets, but I can't figure out how. I tried the alaska airlines website and if I try Bos-Dub, the only flight that shows up is changing in Seattle (ugh! - where's the non-stop). There is fine print on the website that says "You can now book Aer Lingus flights from select US cities to Dublin and beyond on our website. For others please use Aerlingus.com". I guess Boston isn't a select city so it's routing me through one. I also can't figure out how to use alaska airlines points on aerlingus website.

Lastly, in case it helps, I have lots of American Airlines miles.

Thanks for your patience and I appreciate any help!

guv1976

If you are only interested in flying on EI's DUB-BOS nonstop, have you priced the trip with cash or with Chase UR points booking through Chase's travel portal?

You can also redeem UA miles for award travel on EI. You can check available at united.com -- no log-in required. And UA is a Chase transfer partner.

guv1976

The alaskaair.com website is showing award availability for the DUB-BOS nonstop later this month:

guv1976

Note that awards issued with AS miles permit a stopover, so for the cost of a DUB-BOS award, you might be able to add on a trip for a subsequent date from BOS to the U.S. West Coast on AS for no additional miles.

You might have to call AS to book a stopover award; I'm not sure if it can be done online.

mccartje

For Aer Lingus reward bookings you need to use avios.com (you can use your aerclub sign in credentials to sign in there also). Here you can search award availability and how many avios and $ it will cost.
Business class flights tend to be hard to find but economy is generally open. If you want a business fare I suggest looking at United or Alaska as mentioned above (which usually has better availability but will cost you more in miles but less in $ portion required - I think anyway).

In theory you can also use the BA site to find Aer Lingus reward availability at the same rate offered by avios.com (but you may want to double check this for your route of choice).

The avios use option you mentioned in your post on the Aer Lingus website generally offers very poor value for avios redemptions and I would not recommend this at all in your case.

guv1976

OP: Sorry that I misread your post about the direction of travel. But for BOS-DUB, the same redemption options apply.

guv1976

And if you're willing to connect in London, this option with AA miles is available next month:

mahg33ta

Wow! thanks to all for the fast and helpful responses.

Re: Alaska airlines - none of those flights showed up for me but I realize I didn't have "use points" checked. So it was only showing $$ flights and that's why (for some reason) it was showing BOS-SEA-DUB. I scratched my head and said "why does my search result not look like Guv1976?" but I could replicate it after checking points. So that's good.

Secondly, I did not realize there was an Avios website- thought it was just a "currency". Now that I'm on there I can price things and see that they are surprisingly reasonable (21k points)

So I am off and running and have options! Thanks again!!!!

mccartje

Glad you have options and happy hunting whatever you choose. For avios.com make sure you check what the cash component is along with the avios and you are happy with it, this might require clicking through to the next screen to be quoted the cost. This is typically a lot higher versus american carriers (couple hundred dollars + avios points but it varies widely).

guv1976

Will you be returning from DUB, or will this just be a one-way? If you will be returning, do not forget about the free stopover option when redeeming AS miles, if you can make use a BOS-West Coast trip sometime after your return from Ireland.

Of course, you can sometimes find some very cheap Economy Class redemptions with AA miles from BOS to the West Coast -- especially if you're willing to book a connection .