Oh Aer Lingus! You teased me with frequent flyer availability and got me all excited to make a booking. My whole vibe was ruined when it turns out you displayed misleading quotations on the Avios website that AerClub uses.

Well, they’re not really incorrect per se. It just does not display the results in a completely transparent way. I’ll show you what I mean with a handy example.

Incorrect Quotations Are Not Fun

I was checking out flights to New York and availability came up in economy class. All well and good, and since it is Off Peak I was given the following price list.


A straight 13,000 Avios sounded good to me and the other options sounded great too. The most I would be spending is €90 and using 4,500 Avios, which is very good indeed.


When you hit the next screen, reality dawns. The “plus taxes, fees and surcharges” annotation on the original screen does mot mean the €30, €50, €70, €80 and €90 displayed. Oh no! That is essentially airfare and the taxes, fees and surcharges are on top of that again.

Overall Thoughts

It would save everyone (me) a lot of effort if the taxes, fees and surcharges were displayed on the original screen. That way you would not have to click through to see the actual amount you will end up paying.

While it is not really a misleading quotation, I think it’s borderline as to whether they are being completely transparent here. I know that when I do a search with British Airways for example, all the taxes, fees and charges display in front of you straight away. That makes it easier when it comes to decision making, so why the Avios platform differs is anyone’s guess.

What do you think about this method of displaying the pricing? Is it just me getting it wrong or what? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featuered image by Anna Zvereva via Wikimedia Commons.