Aer Lingus has opened up a ton of business class award availability between Dublin, Ireland and Philadelphia (PHL). There are 4+ business class seats available to Dublin from PHL almost every day of March, April and June along with a smattering of additional availability in May. Return awards are similarly wide-open. These flights don’t seem to be available via Alaska and United, but hardly any of it appeared to be bookable via American.
July 1st is available as well, so Aer Lingus might be releasing 4 seats per new day that becomes bookable on the calendar.
The Deal
- Non-stop business class availability from Philadelphia (PHL) to Dublin on Aer Lingus during March, April, May and June, 2024. Connecting coach flights to some of Aer Lingus’ destinations in Europe where available as well.
- Bookable on Alaska (60K miles each way), British Airways (50K each way, off-peak) Avios/Aer Lingus or United (88K each way). Note that BA levies massive taxes and fees of about $880 per outbound ticket, compared to $5.60 for United, $19 for Alaska and `$130 for Aer Lingus.
- There is a 30% transfer bonus from Amex to BA right now, so the BA ticket could be had for ~38,000 Amex points. That said, you’ll also get hit with the previously-mentioned $880 in fees. However, you can also transfer those Avios from BA to Aer Lingus where you can book the same flight on Avios.com for 60K + $128.60 (if the site doesn’t glitch out before you hit get to booking screen).
Quick Thoughts
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 seems to be during the entire spring and is currently bookable via many of Aer Lingus’ partners (except for American), albeit with slightly shifting availability. Also, United and Alaska have access to four seats, but BA only seems to be able to get two at a time.
Here’s the spring schedule on Alaska from PHL-DUB. Aer Lingus saver award flights are listed as 60K + $19 on the Alaska calendar. Most of these days are available on United as well and it’s primarily 4+ seats:
The return flights are not quite as plentiful, but there’s still a a lot of multi-seat availability in April and June (I didn’t see anything in March for 4). On the return, Aer Lingus saver availability shows on the Alaska calendar as 60K + $54 (because of departure taxes from DUB).
I believe that Aer Lingus has flown both A330 and A321’s on these routes, but it looks like they’re currently scheduled to fly the A-321s during the spring. The A321 cabin is arranged in 1-1/2-2 configuration, meaning that odd-numbered rows are “throne” seats that have their own half of the row. These are undoubtedly most desirable if traveling solo (Or with someone that you’d rather not talk to :)).
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The availability from PHL>DUB in May must have disappeared at some point cause I see zero in business for the whole month
Booked Biz roundtrip for 2 for St. Patrick’s day via Avios.com. About $600 in fees but a bargain on 154k Amex MR with the 30% bonus to BA then transferred over. Site worked great in Chrome. No issues. Many thanks!
Is there any way (perhaps calling or some other method) to get access to 4 seats via Avios.com (when only two are showing as available on Avios but 4 are showing on United)? Or is the only way to get availability for 4 by booking through United or Alaska? Thank you!
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I can’t get Avios.com to show business class awards. Logged in with my Aer Lingus account even the economy tickets have pretty decent surcharges. It’s showing me 99,000 Avios and $1100 round trip PHL-DUB in economy.
Avios.com seems to want to charge double the fees for a child than an adult. Any reason I can’t book an adult and then just add the kid’s information?
Avios.com will only show me 2 business class seats for 50k, but United shows 3 available on the same flight at 88k miles.
Yeah, I saw that as well. United and Alaska both have more seats than Avios.com or Ba.com, which seems bizarre to me.
What would be the best way to book one of these if I have only Chase and Amex points and dont want to pay the BA fee?
Transfer to British avios, then transfer to aer lingus.
What Andrew said. You could also use Aer Lingus’ site, Avios.com (it’s glitchy as hell, though, so be warned). Make sure that you that you see the dates/amount of seats available before you transfer, just to save yourself some potential headache.