@ Del While it is a joint venture and they have a profit sharing agreement, the space doesn t come u

Just checked the full year out and didn't find a single J seat on using both the UA website or EF. Is there a secret to EI J availability? four seasons hotel las vegas Also any idea what BA would charge in YQ this redemption even in Y would 25k would be a heck of a deal.
I had always known Aer Lingus was a British Airways partner, though never really thought four seasons hotel las vegas of exploring four seasons hotel las vegas the options they might open up. After all, Aer Lingus isn t exactly a premium airline, and at the same time I had assumed they imposed fuel surcharges on award tickets. I was immediately intrigued when I did a dummy booking, and noticed the fuel surcharges four seasons hotel las vegas for a roundtrip ticket were only $27, compared to British Airways fuel surcharges for Boston to London, which are $438!
So I m sure you guys can see why redeeming British four seasons hotel las vegas Airways Avios points for coach travel on British Airways is an awful value. You d still be stuck paying all of the taxes and fees. The only thing you wouldn t pay by using Avios points is the $73 each way base fare.
As it turns out Aer Lingus may just be the very best option for transatlantic award travel using British Airways Avios points, since you can fly roundtrip from the US to Europe for a total of 25,000 Avios points plus $146.28 in taxes and fees .
So to walk you through four seasons hotel las vegas the process, first I had a look at Aer Lingus route network. Their destinations in the US are Boston, Chicago, and New York. They serve both Dublin and Shannon out of Boston and New York, while they serve only Dublin out of Chicago.
After searching for just about all routes for all dates, I ve determined that Aer Lingus has excellent coach award availability and awful business class award availability. Let me take it a step further. Almost every flight I searched had at least nine coach award seats available, while I didn t see a single business class award seat.
Once I found the space I called four seasons hotel las vegas British Airways and made sure all of this wasn t too good to be true (I wouldn t put it past British Airways to slap on a $500 fuel surcharge of their own). Sure enough, the availability they saw matched the availability I found online, and the total cost for a Boston to Dublin roundtrip ticket was 25,000 Avios points plus $146.28 in taxes and fees ($121.28 of which was taxes, and $25 of which was a ticketing fee).
While Aer Lingus coach probably isn t the best product in the world, it s the only option I ve found for using Avios points for transatlantic travel without paying massive fuel surcharges. I d jump on this in a heartbeat if only I could find some business class award space, as I have a bunch of Avios points I need to use.
Most intriguing for me is that I ve actually always wanted to visit Ireland, so I may end up doing one of these redemptions four seasons hotel las vegas even in coach. If anyone finds any business class award space on Aer Lingus, please let me know!
@ Tim Happy to hear you find it helpful. Under British Airways new program four seasons hotel las vegas they charge for awards on a per segment basis. So you could add on a segment from Cleveland to Chicago, though it would cost an additional 4,500 miles per direction for coach.
When I use the Avios calculator on the BA website, it says that a ONE-WAY flight ORD-DUB is 20,000 four seasons hotel las vegas Avios, so wouldn t that be 40,000 Avios roundtrip, not 20,000? Still a good deal, though, obviously.
And unlike the rest of the bloggers out there, trying to write about BA s AVIOS usage possibilities in hope that they get a referral from the BA affiliate links, you stick to the basics of providing value for your readers.
@ Star Unimpressed To avoid fuel surcharges you ll want to stick to United/US Airways for transatlantic travel four seasons hotel las vegas using Aeroplan miles. four seasons hotel las vegas And while neither are my favorite airlines, they do have a majority of their fleet equipped with fully flat bed products, so aren t a half bad option.
I am a complete novice at this- sorry if this is obvious; but do we go by the Qantas points calculated on the Qantas site to determine the number of Avios points we would be using, or would we go by BA s points? four seasons hotel las vegas Is there a way to determine fuel costs/fees other than by calling? If we call do they charge a fee even if we don t book a flight? Thanks for all of the help, I enjoy your blog!
This is tremendous news! I m sittin on a bunch of Avios points from Amex and paired with the super cheap domestic US flights British Airways is starting to move up as my most valuable four seasons hotel las vegas points. Does Aer Lingus fly from the US to anywhere else but Ireland? Or to get into the actual mainland like Italy or Germany and back would I need to drop another 9k Avios? And I m based in Frisco, so what do you think is my cheapest option in points to get to Boston (more Avios?) Too bad we didn t know this a month ago. I coulda seemed like such a baller flying to Ireland for a weekend just to party for St. Paddys day.
@ Ann Qantas would charge a different number of points, so you would go by the number of points BA requires (which are outlined four seasons hotel las vegas above). As far as the fuel surcharges four seasons hotel las vegas go on Aer Lingus, as you can see above, they re minimal. You could make a dummy revenue booking and see what the fees are above the base fare, and that s also what BA should charge.
@ Everett They only fly nonstop from the US to Ireland, though they have connecting flights to the rest of Europe. Out of SFO it s probably tough to turn this into a great deal, unless four seasons hotel las vegas you can find a cheap revenue ticket to Boston, and then from there you could get to Ireland for 25,000 Avios points, or to the rest of the mainland for another ~15,000 points roundtrip. That s still only ~40,000 Avios points roundtrip between four seasons hotel las vegas Boston four seasons hotel las vegas and just about anywhere in Europe, with virtually no fuel surcharges.
Lucky, if you have 125K Aeroplane miles burning a hole in your pocket, and you want to go to europe from LA, what s the best seat/plane for use, including stopovers, if, say you want to enjoy London or Berlin or Munich on your way to Paris?
@ michael If the points are indeed burning a whole in your pocket (meaning you don t mind spending them all at once), I d probably spend them on United s new first class out of LA or SF. Then you can have two stopovers in Europe in addition to your destination. While you might have to pay fuel surcharges for the short flights, they re minimal compared to the cost of fuel surcharges for a transatlantic flight. So I might do something like LAX-LHR(stopover)-MUC(destination)-BRU(stopover)-ORD-LAX. Of course four seasons hotel las vegas you can replace those cities with any that you d like, and it should still work. But given the fuel surcharges four seasons hotel las vegas that would otherwise be imposed, I d say that s the best value.
@Ben That s better four seasons hotel las vegas than nothing, and Barcelona is on my list of places to go! It seems that changing airports between LHR and LGW/LCY when connecting in London can knock off a couple hundred bucks in taxes fees. It seems to work on stopovers, too, so it would not be a big inconvenience.
@ Gene The key is to avoid terminating in countries that charge four seasons hotel las vegas high air transport taxes, like the UK, Germany, and France. Flying anywhere else should knock off anywhere from $100-300 in taxes/fees.
@ Del While it is a joint venture and they have a profit sharing agreement, the space doesn t come up for me through ExpertFlyer four seasons hotel las vegas or the Qantas tool. So while Aer Lingus members may be able to book it, BA members four seasons hotel las vegas can t.
awesome find, lucky! can you find these reward tickets on the british airways website in order to avoid phone ticketing fees? can you also do avios + cash bookings for these to even lower the amount of avios required?
@Del @Lucky so then is the IAD Madrid flight available with United points? So instead of Avios, I could use 25k (or w/e it is) United miles through Aer Lingus to book the flight? As both BA and UA are Chase UR partners, I m sitting on 90k UR points, so I could go either way. Am I reading this right?
Two more questions 1) re: United NEW FIRST. How do you know you are actually flying on NEW FIRST? Is there a site with info? Same question about BA new first; and 2) Since LAX-SFO fares are routinely $90 with taxes one way, are Avios a good use of redemption on AA?
Tremendous post, thank you for the great info! Especially helpful for me and the family as we try to go TATL every couple years to visit family in Germany. Now we have to find a cheap and practical way to travel Dublin-mainland Europe.
@ michael Ultimately you ll want to compare the seatmap four seasons hotel las vegas for the flight you re looking at on SeatGuru to make sure the seating configuration matches the new one. For what it s worth, four seasons hotel las vegas all 767s and 747s have the new first class, while about half of the 777s do. So if you can stick to a 767 or 747 you d be best off.
For British Airways new first, unfortunately four seasons hotel las vegas there s no guarantee as to which product it will be, since they rotate them fairly randomly. That being said, a majority of their fleet is now reconfigured, so you have a great chance.
A one-way ticket from LAX to SFO would cost 4,500 Avios, so I d say it s a decent use of points. Ultimately there are better uses (like shorthaul markets where tickets are routinely $200+ one-way), four seasons hotel las vegas but two cents per point is a respectable redemption for sure.
@ Erik In addition to what Mac said, it s worth keeping in mind that when paying with Avios you actually pay triple points for domestic flights in first class, and not double points. It s ridiculous, but since the flights are coded as first class they charge the first class price (3x) and not business class price (2x).
@ atxtravel BA doesn t have an award chart but instead only has a mileage calculator that displays how much awards are for a given route. However, it has to be a OneWorld airline for the website to display the cost. In this instance, awards of under 6,000 miles roundtrip price out at 25,000 Avios points.
The economy redemption from Boston looks to be a great value, owing to the good fortune of Boston being 2993 miles from Dublin, just inside the 3000-mile four seasons hotel las vegas cutoff for redemptions going from 12.5K to 20K Avios.
I m not certain of the business class redemption, however. As it does on