My wife and I flew Aer Lingus back in 2016 after we spent a month in Europe. It was a fine experience, typical of any economy experience I’ve had. We flew from Dublin to Toronto, which is a reasonably short transatlantic flight, staying overnight before finishing the trek to California the nest day. It broke up the trip nicely. I had no issue finding Aer Lingus award availability for our economy flights.
I’ve been interested in flying the Irish flag carrier again, but this time in business class. They may not offer the most ground-breaking product, but their Airbus A330s offer a staggered 1-2-1 and 2-2-1 layout that looks spacious and comfortable. It’d beat flying 2-2-2 United business on the new nonstop service from SFO to Dublin.
But there is just one problem…
Is There Ever Aer Lingus Award Availability For West Coast Business Class?
After searching literally the entire award calendar for Aer Lingus availability via united.com, I came up completely dry. There is literally not a single seat available. I’m trusting that United’s filters for nonstop only in the award calendar are accurate.
I headed to avios.com to check for space as well, as Aer Lingus may offer a limited inventory to United. Trying to pick the most “off” days during off-peak times, I still came up dry. Spending 20 minutes or more checking different dates yielded the same thing: nothing.
I’ve known that Aer Lingus award availability be especially bad in business class, but I do recall when they made a good number of awards available a couple years ago. It seems that may have been a fluke? No idea. In any case, I won’t be able to score a seat anytime soon from the West Coast to Dublin.
This makes me wonder how Aer Lingus award availability to the U.S. West Coast is managed. Is there simply enough business demand that revenue fares fill the cabins most days? Given that Dublin is a tech hub, this would not be too surprising for flights from the West Coast, especially Seattle and San Francisco. But every day? I doubt business travelers are flying out of SFO Wednesday evening.
This is frustrating to say the least. I know there are carriers and routes that are especially bad for award inventory, but this is beyond bad.
United isn’t far behind, though. Their new summer Dublin service also offers zero seats in business. Looks like I’m completely out of luck, although I am more interested in using Avios for an off-peak Aer Lingus award.
Conclusion
I’d love to fly Aer Lingus business class to Dublin, but I really am not interested in connecting to Boston or Washington D.C. to do so. The cross-country flight would likely be in economy, and given how short of a transatlantic flight it is to Ireland, it really wouldn’t be worth spending all the miles on business at that point.
What has your experience been? Have you flown Aer Lingus business class? Have you ever seen space available from the U.S. West Coast?
Feature image courtesy of Eric Salard via Flickr under CC BY 2.0 license.
Are Lingus regularly has business class awards available to/from Seattle with AK Mileage Plan. Of course, most are priced at 280K one way but awards at 60K are regularly available if you book early. One simply has to decide whether it’s better to spend (one-way) 60K for an angled-flat business class seat with Aer Lingus, 50K for for a lie-flat business class seat with BA (in a configuration that can be 2-4-2) or 70K to fly BA in first, taking into account the hefty surcharges for each of these awards.
Interesting. I did not check their site at all. I would have expected to find *something* at avios.com first.
Wow that’s awful. It reminds me of my experiences trying to find Singapore suites saver space for my wife and I Asia to or from JFK. Absolutely nothing for the entire schedule.
I’ve heard that particular space is rough. Never chased it myself. Things like this really frustrate me. I get that some routes have high revenue passenger rates, but to offer nothing? C’mon.
I too am frustrated by this. In all my searches for flights from the West coast I have never found a single business award seat on Aer Lingus. What makes it even worse I was searching for my wife and I! Forget about it. We had complete flexibility on dates and times for a whole year and found nothing.
I’ve had more success finding 2 F award seats on QF.
We decided to get to Europe by burning (one way) 380k AS miles on Emirates first with a stopover in Dubai. For the return to SEA we found good business availability on Air France if you search well in advance. We scored two people in business MXP-CDG-SEA for about 80k amex MRs, yes only 40 k apiece.
Man…quite the outlay. Hope it was an amazing experience!! I agree that Air France is easy enough to snag if you have flexibility. Hoping to fly their 777-300ER in the next year or so. There is lots of space on the A380 out of SFO/LAX, but I’ve read the product isn’t great.
Thanks for the tip!
As an amateur in collecting miles/points for the past 2.5 years, I enjoy your blog because I can relate since I live in San Diego. I am making my second business class Trip to Amsterdam in June and luckily, the return flight via Detroit will be on the A350-900 on July 2. The flight going their will be on the A330-300. Although, I already experienced the A330-300 in late March when I went to Madrid.
Not easy finding flights from SD to Europe and frustration trying to go through Virgen Atlantic or other Delta partner award websites.
Same thing with United and American.
Anyhow, keep up the your great work!!
Thanks, JB! Hope you enjoy the trip. I have yet to fly Delta’s new A350-900, but it is supposed to be amazing!