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Early today, we posted about the excellent business class availability between the East Coast and Switzerland on Swiss Air. While looking at options for those flights, I happened to notice that some Seattle-Europe flights onAer Lingus were pricing out strangely on United.com.
I found that there are 2+ business class seats available to Dublin from Seattle almost every day of July, but almost nothing in June or August. Oddly, these tickets seem to only be bookable on Alaska and United and not on other One World and Star Alliance partners. This might be the beginning of broader award availability being loaded, it could be a mistake, it could be neither. Regardless, it probably won’t stay up long.
The Deal
- Non-stop business class availability from Seattle to Dublin on Aer Lingus during July 2022. Only seems to be bookable on Alaska (60K each way) and United (77-82K each way)
- Return via Aer Lingus or British Airways bookable via Alaska (60K) or British Airways (75k).
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, Iberia, 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 the month of July and is currently ONLY bookable via United and Alaska. I couldn’t find any of the seats available on American or Aeroplan (or BA). Here’s the July schedule to Alaska from SEA-DUB (United has slightly less, but almost identical availability):
The return flights are not as plentiful, but handily British Airways has some good availability on Alaska.com with reduced award fees of around ~$210 (because of the Dublin departure) all throughout both July and August .
Again, oddly, the BA seats are not showing up on AA.com and, even more bizare, the BA flights showing on Alaska are not all available on BA.com, but the Aer Lingus flights are. I thought it was phantom space at first, but was able to book seats (which I then cancelled immediately). Here’s the Alaska calendar for the return:
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, which makes this feel even more like it’s unintended.
Quick Thoughts
This is one of the more bizarre chunks of transatlantic availability that I’ve seen recently. The fact that the outbound Aer Lingus seats are only on Alaska and United is something that I haven’t seen before and makes me wonder if there is an IT glitch somewhere that needs to be fixed.
But, we’ve seen hardly any saver availabilty to Europe from Seattle (or the West Coast in general) this year, so if you have the Alaska miles and the time, this is a great deal for lie-flat seats smack-dab in the middle of Summer.
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I wanted to give you guys a shout out for these awesome posts today. These are so incredibly useful, although they make me anxious because I think I need to book all of them…but we already have too much travel planned that I have lost track! 🙂
Thanks for the kind words gene! Glad they’ve been useful!
I always have to remind myself that I don’t need to fit ALL the travel into one year 🙂
it’s bookable. I booked 4 seats outbound, no issue but I had to book outbound and return separately and realized return availability have all dried up. just 2 days in july 14th and 15th… United not showing better. So I ended up wasting alaska’s non refundable partner award processing fee of like $25 but there you go… whether they will honor it or not, at least it’s bookable and not phantom spaces.
or $50 wasted ($12.50×4). It was a book first ask questions later thing but I moved too quick. oh well…
Ah shoot…can you hold onto them for a bit and see if you can figure out a return in the next month or so?
something fish… same exact 60k for main and business… I’d say it’s a mistake fare.
It certainly could be.
I booked 4 of these 60k seats last weekend on alaska miles, and since called Are Lingus direct to get my seats assigned with no problem! The deal went live Fri March 18th.
Thanks for the DP Kat! Enjoy Ireland!
Think this might be a glitch Tim, pretty sure EI have canceled SEA until 8/27.
It’s bookable with cash as well are you sure?
Hmmm…I don’t think that’s the case. EI has the same flights for sale on their own website for cash.
Oops, like Ben said. 🙂
Called, they only cancel through July 6th not Aug.