Some good news and bad news. First, the good news – Aer Lingus award flights are now bookable on BA.com. That could prove to be really useful if you don’t want to have to call British Airways in order to book award flights using Avios in a BA account.
There is potential bad news though – some of the taxes and fees are larger than the lines to kiss the Blarney Stone pre-COVID.
The issue only seems to be affecting flights from the US to Ireland rather than the other direction and it’s primarily business class awards that are attracting the egregious fees.
To encounter this problem, you’ll need to find business class availability between the US and Ireland on Aer Lingus in the first place. That’s not easy as I spent a good half hour exploring different route options and only finding availability in economy class.
Eventually searching between Philadelphia and Dublin did the trick. Searching from Dublin to Philadelphia showed a couple of seats available in business class. The cost on BA.com was 50,000 Avios + $202.57 in taxes which is in keeping with what costs have been historically.
Searching in the other direction is what was shocking. There was the same 50,000 Avios cost, but this time the taxes and fees were an eye-watering $729.80. That would make the round-trip cost in business class 100,000 Avios + almost $1,000 in taxes and fees.
It’s not clear why those taxes and fees are so high. It might be that there’s some kind of bug with BA’s website that was introduced when syncing up with Aer Lingus award availability, but perhaps they’ll maintain these absurd taxes and fees.
If you want to book these Aer Lingus award flights but avoid such high fees, there is a workaround. You can book these same flights on Avios.com, but you’ll need to set up an Aer Lingus account first and then transfer your British Airways Avios to your new Aer Lingus Avios account.
That could well be worth it though as the fees are substantially lower. For Dublin to Philadelphia, you’d only pay $169.67 in taxes and fees – $32.90 less than booking on BA’s website.
The other direction benefits from even more significant savings. Rather than paying $729.80 in taxes and fees, you’d be charged a far more reasonable $139.80 – $590 less than booking on BA’s website.
The cost in Avios would be the same, so you’d still be paying 100,000 Avios. However, booking a round trip on Avios.com rather than BA.com would save you $622.90. That’s a whole lot of Guinness.
h/t Head For Points & One Mile At A Time
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