hwqcgsw

I've been on the hunt for Avios business reward seats for a flight from Dublin (EI53) to Seattle in March 2024. Earlier this year, I saw one available ticket, but I missed out. Since then, no luck in finding more. Does anyone know if there's usually just one reward business ticket per flight?

Checking availability daily is quite a time sink, and the Avios website doesn't offer a calendar view. Manual checking can be a drag, and the site's speed doesn't help. Any tips or tricks for snagging these tickets?

I'm flexible with my travel dates, anywhere between February and September suits me. Hoping to grab a reward ticket before September rolls around. Any advice would be awesome!

FlightDetective

There's no secret trick when it comes to Aer Lingus and no shortcuts.

If a seat comes up, you'll need to snag it, and there's no guarantee one will come up.

I agree, it is time consuming to have to search daily, that's for sure!

Good luck!

hwqcgsw

Thanks! Seems like I need to check it manually every day lol.

Beleir

How much avios was it total ? Depending on that why don't you book the cheapest flight and upgrade it with Avios?

gjc31

It is *very* frustrating! It doesn’t help that the site is so flaky . They really do make it difficult don’t they?

blagger

The United site can be helpful, but it's flaky itself, and finding what you want is a bit of an art. I just now randomly picked 15 March on the United site and it showed nonstop DUB-SEA seats available in J. I then went to Avios and (eventually) confirmed 4Y, 3J seats are available on that date. If it helps, the UA taxes for EI on that flight are 37.98, so if you do a (one way, business, nonstop, flexible dates) search and you see taxes higher than that for a day then you know there are definitely no EI seats available. For the other dates you need to click each day (which is slow, but much faster than searching on Avios). I quickly clicked a few more and quickly found availability on March 5, and then searched on Avios and it shows 4J available

ETA: The United flexible dates search shows prices (hits) for a day even when you search for nonstop but there's no nonstop available that day. That's why you need to click individual dates to see if there's actually a nonstop (EI) flight available

hwqcgsw

want to use the Amex 241 voucher lol

hwqcgsw

Thanks very much for the reply! It seems they released a lot of seats and I grabbed what I wanted, really appreciate it.

mailliW

Can you book a reward flight on emerald air. Trying to find flights between Sou-Bhd late February but can't find any availability on a few dates I've checked.

ChurnieEls

Yeah I've booked Avios flights on Emerald operated flights before.

mailliW

thanks so it's no availability on dates i was looking at. I was hoping to start burning through my avios stockpile

hwqcgsw

Of course! What I booked is a combination of Emerald Air and Aer Lingus.

PointsGeek

The answer to your issue is ExpertFlyer. I've been using it for EI alerts and have also had the issue of them only releasing 1 ticket. I booked that ticket and am banking on them releasing another. The flight is in 2mo and biz class is completely open.

holycow4

Question for you experts out there. I saw 4 biz seats available using Alaska miles and booked 2 while working on amassing points for the remaining 2. Lo and behold, the remaining 2 disappeared from inventory immediately after I completed my booking. Can I expect the availability to come back at some point? Or would I possibly need to cancel my existing booking and hope that all 4 come back?

FlightDetective

I'm surprised you've seen 4. I've never seen four in business class when searching the Aer Lingus rewards myself.

I think you should count yourself lucky. If you cancel the two, I would guess none would come back.