Right now there is lots of availability showing for Aer Lingus Business Class flights between Toronto and Dublin. This is perfect for those who hold British Airways Executive Club Avios (or Iberia, Qatar Airways etc.) or can transfer credit card points over to BA take advantage of these flights.
On many days throughout the remainder of the winter and most of the spring season you can find room for two or more people in Business Class. The majority of those days are pricing at off-peak levels (50,000 Avios each way) except for March 31 – April 16 which is peak pricing (60,000 Avios each way) for Easter/Spring break.
You’ll find the same thing for Economy Class – tons of availability with most days showing 5 seats available and during the off-peak season those are only 13,000 Avios each way.
To book these flights you’ll want to do so via Aer Lingus AerClub (aka Avios.com) as the taxes and fees charged are a lot less than booking the same flights via British Airways Executive Club. As our reader Kevin pointed out to us, the business class awards via BA incur over $1,100 in taxes and fees versus sub $400 via Avios.com. You can easily transfer Avios from your British Airways Executive Club over to Aer Lingus via the Avios.com website should you want to book these flights.
Aer Lingus Business Class Redemption Example:
As you can see there are multiple seats available in both economy and business for both directions.
We picked business class for both directions with the following results:
You can redeem 100,000 Avios + $392.16 per person for this round trip business class flight. If you were paying cash, those same flights would be as follows:
A total of $4,202.97 and if we subtract the fees on the award ticket, those 100,000 Avios will save you $3810.81. That works out to 3.81 cents per Avios. That’s a really decent redemption value considering most Avios in Canada are earned via credit cards like the American Express Cobalt Card, RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card and HSBC World Elite Mastercard.
If we look at the Cobalt Card, its Membership Rewards points convert 1:1 to BA (and then you can transfer to Aer Lingus 1:1) which means the 5x points earned on eats and drinks would be providing you a 19% return! Whoop whoop!
RBC and HSBC provide lower returns (no less than 3.81%) and if you happened to convert when they had their 30% transfer bonuses you are getting pretty good value as well!
Another way to look at it is that you only need $20,000 in spending on the Cobalt Card to get this business class flight. Most other cards could at the very most provide an economy class flight for the equivalent spending. Just another example why the Cobalt Card is the best overall card in Canada.
Aer Lingus Economy Class Redemption example:
As you can see there are 5 seats available in economy and that seems to be the norm on most days.
Picking economy class for both directions with the following results:
You can redeem 26,000 Avios + $334.36 per person for this round trip economy class flight. If you were paying cash, those same flights would be as follows:
A total of $828.97 (there are cheaper options but Avios awards includes checked baggage so we took the price from Aer Lingus that also offers checked baggage) and if we subtract the fees on the award ticket, those 26,000 Avios will save you $494.61. That works out to 1.9 cents per Avios. That is a really decent redemption value for economy class.
Again, with the Cobalt Card that is just shy of a 10% return on your 5x points spending. That’s pretty awesome for economy class to Europe. And to earn the 26,000 Avios not including the card welcome bonus? You would only need to spend $5,200 in eats and drinks on the Cobalt Card. No other card will even come close to getting you an economy class fare to Europe with that little amount spending.
Booking these flights
As we mentioned earlier, you want to book these flights via Avios.com. However the website has been really finicky lately and it takes multiple hits of the refresh button, back button, clearing cookies and switching browsers to get things to work. For me, when it stopped working in Safari I would switch to Firefox or vice versa.
Since there are issues with their site I would recommend searching for availability on the British Airways website. Once you find flights to your liking on BA move over to Avios.com to actually book the flights. To book on Avios.com you’ll need a separate account from you BA account. The best way is to join Aer Lingus AerClub (Join here) and then your login credentials from Aer Lingus can be used on Avios.com
Transferring Avios
To book these flights on Avios.com you’ll need to have the Avios in your Aer Lingus account. For most of us that means transferring your Avios from British Airways Executive to Aer Lingus. That can be done right here.
On the transfer page you’ll select the program you want to move Avios from and log in for that account.
Then you’ll select which way you want to transfer. In this case we’d want to go from British Airways to Avios Partners. Once you have that filled out you’ll click on the review button which at this point you get one final review before confirming the transfer. Click confirm transfer to complete the transaction!
It’s that easy! Well, as long as the Avios.com website is behaving! For me, I had to clear the Avios.com cookies out of my browser to be able to get the combine Avios page to work.
Wrapping it up
If Ireland is on your radar for the next couple of months be sure to check out this award option for travelling on Aer Lingus out of Toronto. Business Class represents a real good deal and the fact there are multiple seats available on most of the flights is really appealing for couples and families alike! Economy class can be a good value but do compare the cash pricing. Aer Lingus frequently runs seat sales where you can get economy class flights under $500. However those prices are with no checked luggage so be sure you are comparing apples to apples.
Images via Aer Lingus & Avios.com