Have found a decent itinerary and price using Just Fly web search. Shows all Aer Lingus flights to/from our multi city Europe destinations. However, when I try to book directly on Aer Lingus website, it doesn't give me our destination cities as options. Two questions:
1. Feedback on Aer Lingus?
2. Is there a way around this on Aer Lingus website or should I just book thru Just Fly?
Depart Atlanta early June--arrive Frankfurt
Depart Venice late June--arrive Atlanta.
Thanks!
Red
Your Just Fly quote will have connecting flights, check it out. In other words, Aer Lingus does not fly from Atlanta to Frankfurt, or from Venice back to Atlanta. Aer Lingus likely flies to/from these destinations out of New York or Boston, with no Aer Lingus flights from either to Atlanta (I'm guessing). All Aer Lingus go in and out of Dublin.
Have you tried booking as two one way flights. I had the same problem recently trying to get to Ediburgh from San Diego. The website couldn't do it, so I called and the customer service could book LA to EDI, but not from San Diego and price was higher. So I went back online and did LA to DUB, then DUB to EDI as multi city on one ticket and did my return separately. I used free miles to get to LA from SD. I flew Aer Lingus last summer in business class going and economy returning. Loved, loved, loved business; economy was your typical low cost carrier, but with friendlier attendants.
Its called codesharing. Airlines using other partner airlines' flights, but using their own flight numbers for the ticketing.
We had the same problem with the same itinerary. (We're on the GAS before you.) Apparently Aer Lingus does not fly out of Vienna at all. We wound up going with Icelandic Air Boston (our daughter lives there) as it was much more cost effective than Charlotte or Asheville. We will take a couple of extra days on the Vienna end of the tour and take the train to Munich and fly back from there. I tried to be creative with departure cities but ultimately it became a pain and we have flown Icelandic Air before. Good luck with getting your preferred itinerary.
I ran into a similar situation with Aer Lingus recently. I was looking for tickets for Hartford-Venice/Milan-Hartford and could not get them on the Aer Lingus website. The itinerary was available on Expedia. Since I prefer to book directly with the airline, I contacted Aer Lingus to ask them about this. They responded but did not explain why the itinerary was not available on the website. I ended up using a different airline for the trip anyway. Friends of ours were looking for a similar flight to Italy, and I reluctantly advised them to use a third party site.
We like Aer Lingus because it is the only caririer that flies directly to Europe from our home airport. Also, we like being able to go through US customs and immigration in Dublin on the way home.
Hi!
I suggest directly calling the Aer Lingus call center. I have had numerous problems booking on the website before. They now include 'Mulit-city' as an option (which they didn't used to), but still only allows for two flights for some reason , which doesn't work if your cities don't "show up" in their drop-down menus. SO ANNOYING! I have no idea why they set up their website this way. UGH!
However, every time I have called them, their agents have been able to book it for me. Silly, yes! Annoying, yes! But usually do-able. Good Luck!
:) Gretchen
I fly Aer Lingus all the time (at least once or twice a year for several years) and they are fine - as good as any other airline. And almost always significantly cheaper.
The problem you may be having with certain cities is that while Aer Lingus flies to them, the timing may not be such that you can make a connecting flight. For example, from Dublin the only direct flights to the US are NY, Boston, Chicago, Hartford and maybe one or two others. For everywhere else you have to connect, and use a partner airline. On the European side, they fly to many cities all over Europe, but for example, the flight from Venice to Dublin gets in too late for you to connect to the flight from Dublin to Boston (or where ever). So while you can see that the various cities you may be interested in are places they fly between, the times don't work. There is only one flight a day from Dublin to each of the US destinations. So, another example - my closest airport is Hartford. Aer Lingus flies to Hartford, and to Venice. But the Venice flight gets to Dublin too late to make the Hartford flight. However, it does get there in time for the Boston flight. So when you first start looking it appears I could fly from Venice to Hartford (via Dublin) but when you go to actually book it, you can't.
Justfly.com on Jan. 20 shows no Aer Lingus combinations for the itinerary you specified in June. Are you patching these flight together on single tickets? The complication may arise from trying to include Venice, which serves relatively few trans-Atlantic flights. matrix.itasoftware.com (in my experience the most comprehensive source - no search function covers everything in the air) indicates that Delta has non-stops for both your trans-Atlantic flights, in the area of $1500 in mid-June. KLM and Air France also come up but all three are partners using the same plane, even though prices vary a little. Cheapest appears to be Turkish but with a longer itinerary because of the stop in Istanbul.
Both flight duration and convenience are issues. If you try to work out something through Dublin, you may find that the various airlines do not interchange luggage or sell each other's tickets, leading to extra time and stress as you go through both immigration and luggage check-in at the intermediate airport.
Thanks to all. That itinerary came directly from Justfly and I wasn't patching anything together. We ended up with Virgin Atlantic which has a great deal rn on Premium seat--cheaper than Economy. We fly to Dusseldorf and IC to Nuremberg for a couple of days before we meet the tour in Prague. Should be a great time and again thanks for the tips!
