Aer Lingus seems to have just dropped a ton of award availailability to Dublin from Washington DC. There are 2+ business class seats available to Dublin from Washington/Dulles almost every day of July and August along with a smattering of additional availability from Philadelphia and Seattle. This might be the beginning of broader award availability being loaded, it could be another Aer Lingus mistake, it could be neither. Regardless, it probably won’t stay up for long.
The Deal
- Non-stop business class availability from IAD to Dublin on Aer Lingus during July/August 2022. Small amounts of availability from SEA and PHL as well.
- Bookable on Alaska (60K each way), American (57.5K each way), British Airways (60K each way), Avios.com/Aer Lingus (60K each way) or United (72-82K each way).
- Note that there is a 30% transfer bonus from Chase to BA right now, so the BA ticket could be had for 46,153 Chase points. That said, you’ll also get hit with about $730 in fees. However, you can transfer those Avios from BA to Aer Lingus where you can book the same flight on Avios.com for 60K + $128.60.
As a reminder, although Aer Lingus is part of the Avios rewards program, they are not a part of One World directly. So, although they partner with several One World Airlines (Alaska, American, BA), they also partner with Star Alliance members United and Air Canada…and randomly Etihad and JetBlue as well.
This availability only seems to be during July and August and is currently bookable via most of Aer Lingus’ partners, albeit with slightly shifting availability. Here’s the August schedule on Alaska from IAD-DUB. Note that the Aer Lingus saver award flights are listed as 60K + $19 on the Alaska calendar. Most of these days are available on AA and United as well and it’s primarily 2+ seats:
The return flights in August are not as plentiful, but there are some, again with multi-seat availability. On the return, Aer Lingus saver availability shows on the Alaska calendar as 60K + $51 (because of departure taxes from DUB):
On many of these flights, Alaska is pricing the business cabin at exactly the same price as economy. While this does sometimes happen with Alaska award pricing, it’s usually on AS metal (although we’ve seen this happen with Aer Lingus before).
Aer Lingus flies both A330 and A321’s on these routes. The A330 business cabin layout uses a combination of 1-2-1 and 2-2-1 layout while the A321LR cabin is arranged in 1-1/2-2. On both planes, seats 3K and 5K are the most desirable if traveling solo.
(h/t: STTP)
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Any trick around waiting 90 days until you can transfer from one Avios account to another?
I thought Aer Lingus is not bookable with AA, only BA and AS.
Not seeing any July dates–already gone?
Whoops, found it…accidentally searched DXB 🙂
Easy to do 😉
Any tricks to actually get the “Combine my Avios” feature to work?
More startling is how much the awards drop to a couple weeks later after Sept 1 Off Peak. I know economy is 13,000.
The numbers don’t mean much without the surcharge amount.
Amazing that Aer Lingus Avios is still so much cheaper, especially for surcharges than what BA and Iberia charge for the same flights.