Hello! I am planning on a trip to Ireland next year and have built up British Airways Avios to get reward travel. Does Avios work with AerLingus? I was initially planning on going back to London, but am reconsidering and researching Ireland travel instead. Even building up the points, flying BA using my avios will still cost around $1000+ for taxes, fuel, surcharges, etc. Trying to research now to see what my options are.
Thank you!
Natalie
Here is a great website with the explanation to your question: http://mommypoints.boardingarea.com/2014/07/21/use-avios-book-aer-lingus-flights-low-fees-low-miles-europe/#sthash.tIIVDExl.tyVUP6f5.dpbs
Good luck!
Hello, Natalie. My wife and I booked a trip to Ireland and Scotland for later this year, using BA Avios on Aer Lingus. I coincidentally followed the guidance provided in the same link Carl shared with you-- it works! We checked out Aer Lingus availability by using our United Mileage Plus account (another Aer Lingus partner), and then called BA to book NYC to Dublin non-stop, followed by a flight 8 days later from Cork to Edinburgh, and finally our trip home, from Edinburgh (via Dublin) back to NYC. This cost us 98,000 Avios, and still cost $569.00 in taxes and fees. I think we might have done better had we simply used Avios for the transatlantic flights and purchased the shorter flights separately, but doing this way will make our return home less complicated, I think. We did ask the BA representative--nicely-- if he would waive the $25-per-passenger telephone booking fee, since one can only book Aer Lingus award travel through BA on the phone. He did waive the fee. So, while we still paid rather more in taxes than we wished, it is still much less than what BA would have levied, and my wife and I shall finally use her years-old cache of BA Avios. Good luck with your travel planning.
I'm flying from Houston to Boston on United Airlines and then using my BA avios to fly Aer Lingus to Dublin, with only $129 for taxes. We're using ultimate rewards points to pay for the Houston to Boston leg.
Things are changing for Aer Lingus and there may be changes before you arrive in 2016.
What the changes will mean to using miles/points I don't know, and I don't know if anybody knows.
Currently the majority shareholder is the Irish government with something like 26%, followed closely by RyanAir which has something like 23%.
The government is trying to unload its shares and trying to force RyanAir to sell its shares, but, as usual, the head of RyanAir, a certain Mr O'Leary, doesn't want to play. This is all so that the company which now owns BA and Iberia can take over Aer Lingus. But that can't happen while the Irish government and RyanAir own the majority shareholding.
So things are going through the courts and various announcements are being made, the latest this week.
I booked one way Boston to Shannon in Economy for ~$60 total for my wife and I for March 2016. 12,500 Avios each. Amazing. However, when I went to check availability a few weeks afterwards, it seemed like it had all magically disappeared...
IAG has put down an offer to all shareholders in Aer Lingus for the price accepted by the Irish Government for their stake.
Aer Lingus would remain a separate airline under the IAG holding structure in the same way as British Airways, Iberia and Vueling are. It isn't like bmi who were bought and absorbed by BA.
Avios is the 'shared currency' of the IAG, and Aer Lingus almost certainly will adopt this for its own flyer programme with transfers possible between programmes. YQ is dealt with differently by each member.
