While you’re not able to book partner awards with Aer Lingus Avios, you’ll find a few good values with the award program.

For this post, I’m not going to get into the details of the elite status aspect of the program and instead focus on the redemption side of the program.

Three banks directly transfer to Aer Lingus Avios

The good news is that if you’re looking for Aer Lingus Avios, it’s quite easy for you to transfer into the program from three banks:

• American Express Membership Rewards transfers points at a 1:1 ratio, instantly
• Bilt Rewards transfers points at a 1:1 ratio, instantly
• Chase Ultimate Rewards transfers points at a 1:1 ratio, instantly

Both Capital One and Citi ThankYou do not directly transfer points to Aer Lingus, but you can do it with a little bit of alchemy.

Easily move Avios between sister programs

British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Qatar Airways, and Finnair all use Avios as their rewards currency. Rather than each program accessing the same bank of points, you need to transfer your points from one program to the other. While it’s a little annoying to have to go through this step, thankfully it is fairly straightforward to do it. And you will want to do it because each program might offer different points prices and award availability to its own members.

You’ll want to make sure that the name matches between your accounts and as much other details as possible. If not, there’s a chance the transfer will fail. But once you’re set up, you should be good to go. Just find the “Combine Avios” section of your account after logging in.

Thus, you can easily accrue Aer Lingus Avios by pumping up your British Airways or Qatar Airways accounts first.

Award flights booked with Aer Lingus Avios can be booked 330 days in advance

As a planner, I love being able to book awards well far in advance. I feel like I can lock down my preferred dates of travel before the majority of other award seekers. And so the earlier the schedule is released, the better it is.

But perhaps what matters more is being able to book awards before those with a large balance of miles with U.S. programs are able to book. Those programs generally open schedules and award bookings 11 months in advance. So if you can find a program that allows awards weeks before the comparable U.S. airline (here, American or Alaska), you can generally book what you want.

Award flights booked with Aer Lingus Avios can only be booked 330 days in advance, roughly in line with US programs. However, they might add more inventory with 90 days to go before the flight.

Cheap award cancel fees

Need to change or cancel an award flight? Thankfully, the fees are reasonable with this program:

• Changing your flight costs €42.50 per passenger. This can only be done more than 24 hours before departure.
• Canceling a flight will return your Avios to your account at the same €42.50 per passenger.
  • If the cancelation is more than 24 hours before departure, all Avios, taxes, and fees are refundable (less the per passenger fee above).
  • If the cancelation is less than 24 hours before departure, only the taxes and fees will be refunded (less the per passenger fee above).

Award booked with Aer Lingus Avios are zone-based

Awards on Aer Lingus

While many Avios-family programs are based primarily on distance, Aer Lingus instead charges award rates based on zones. So what do they charge? Nothing more than 75,000 miles for a one-way nonstop flight.

No partner awards?

Somewhat surprisingly, Aer Lingus doesn’t allow partner flights to be booked with their Avios. If you’re in the market for a partner award flight, you’re going to have to transfer your Avios to one of its sister programs.

What are the sweet spots?

As you might expect for a program that doesn’t allow partner award flights, there aren’t too many sweet spots. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing of value here.

As low as 13,000 Avios for economy between northeast North America and Ireland

Often overlooked is the excellent pricing on economy award flights between North America and Europe. This is especially true if you are flying from Ireland to North America as these are typically daytime flights. You might find you don’t need the comforts of business class for this journey. So, being able to secure an affordable price on this leg (as low as 13,000 Avios for the northeast and 16,250 Avios elsewhere) is pretty good.

Off-peak business class between North America and Ireland

How about business class on the route? That’s also not a bad deal, assuming you can find the award space. You’re looking at only 50,000 Avios between the northeast section of North America and Ireland. Or, expand your horizon and travel from the west coast for only 62,500. The best part? There are no pesky fuel surcharges you have to worry about. That makes this pricing far more attractive than what sister program British Airways charges.

Infant awards are 10% of the miles price

Back when we flew internationally with an infant, we ended up sometimes paying a pretty penny to allow our child to sit in our lap. Without getting into the debate on the safety of the lap child, I can say it sometimes got expensive.

With most airlines, you would be forced to pay 10% of the cash price of the ticket. Say you found a flight for 75,000 miles in business class one-way. But if you want to bring your lap infant, you’d have to pay 10% of the cash fare, which could be thousands of dollars. A one-way flight is painfully priced high, and you might pay less if doing a roundtrip, but it’s still quite a dent. I’d say the rough average of what we paid for an infant was around $600 for the ticket.

With Aer Lingus, the flight will cost only 10% of the Avios price for lap infants. You can book these awards online, making it pretty convenient. Just take the example below of an adult and a 1-year-old flying in business: only 55,000 Avios for the two passengers.

How to best search for availability?

If you can get the website to function properly, searching for Aer Lingus award flights is generally straightforward. I’ve found the site needs a better calendar, as if there is no award space on your preferred date, it might take time to find the nearest available option. On top of that, it can be tough to isolate results to just the cabin you want to see. Thus, I’d prefer not to use the website if I can get out of doing so.

The free point.me award tool will help you find award space since the program is a transfer partner of both Amex and Bilt. Or, you can choose your favorite award search tool.

Do Aer Lingus Avios expire?

Yes, these Avios expire after 36 months. On top of that, your account will be disabled and you will need to contact Aer Lingus to restore the account. Thankfully, it’s quite simple keeping them active with any activity (using or earning).

The one thing to know, however, is that simply moving them from one Avios program to another isn’t enough to reset the expiration date. Still, what I prefer to do is keep all my Avios in one program (British Airways) until I’m ready to use them. That way I only have one program that needs activity rather than spending effort keeping all programs active. Given the lengthy 36 month expiry, this might be a good program to use to store your Avios until you’re ready to use them.

Suggested reading:

• Destinations we’ve visited
• How to Travel with Kids
• How to Book Award Travel Like a Pro