Aer Lingus AerClub Award Flight Booking Instructions

Aer Lingus is the national airline of Ireland and is headquartered in the nation’s capital city of Dublin. The airline operates its own frequent flyer program, called AerClub, which uses Avios rewards currency. Avios is also used by British Airways Executive Club, Finnair Plus, Iberia Plus, Qatar Airways Privilege Club and several smaller airlines’ frequent flyer programs. The Avios currency can be freely transferred between any of the programs that use it, giving you a lot of options for redeeming Avios.

One such option is to use Avios to book Aer Lingus-operated award flights through the Aer Lingus AerClub program. At the current time, the Aer Lingus AerClub program doesn’t allow members to book partner award flights (despite the fact that Aer Lingus has many partnerships with international airlines). So, if you want to redeem Avios through AerClub, you’ll only be able to purchase Aer Lingus-operated flights.

Nonetheless, you can still get great value for your Avios through the AerClub program, as this program prices all Aer Lingus award flights according to a fixed, distance-based award chart. This means that you can find certain award flight redemptions through this program that offer outsized value exceeding 1 cent per Avios.

In this article, we’re going to explain how to book award flights through the Aer Lingus AerClub program.

Joining Aer Lingus AerClub

Before you redeem Avios through the AerClub program, you’ll have to join the program. So, if you aren’t yet an AerClub member, you’ll need to visit the Aer Lingus website and navigate to the AerClub drop-down menu on the homepage.

Then, select the “Join AerClub” option from that drop-down menu to begin the process of signing up for AerClub.

From there, you’ll be asked to enter your personal details, including your name, date of birth, gender and email address.

You’ll be assigned an AerClub membership number, and then you’ll officially be a member of the program. This means you have the ability to earn and redeem Avios through the AerClub program.

How to Earn Aer Lingus Avios

Before you redeem Aer Lingus Avios for an award flight, you’ll need to have a balance of Avios in your account. You can earn Avios in a variety of ways, but the most effective ways are to transfer Avios from other frequent flyer programs that use the currency, to transfer credit card points to the AerClub program, to sign up for an Aer Lingus co-branded credit card or to take flights with Aer Lingus, British Airways or United Airlines.

Let’s briefly take a look at each of these ways to earn Avios through the Aer Lingus AerClub program.

Transfer Avios From Other Frequent Flyer Programs

As mentioned above, Avios is a rewards currency shared by several other frequent flyer programs, including British Airways Executive Club, Finnair Plus, Iberia Plus, Qatar Airways Privilege Club and several smaller airlines’ frequent flyer programs. Avios can be transferred freely among each of these programs, which means that you can transfer Avios from any of the aforementioned frequent flyer programs into the AerClub program.

You can transfer Avios from British Airways or Iberia by logging into Avios.com with your Aer Lingus AerClub credentials and then going to the “Combine My Avios” page and selecting either program from the drop-down menu. Then, you can follow the prompts to complete a transfer of Avios.

Unfortunately, you can’t transfer Avios directly to AerClub from either Finnair Plus or Qatar Airways at this time. So, you’ll have to first transfer Avios to British Airways from either of these programs and then make a second transfer to AerClub.

Transfer Credit Card Points

One particularly effective way to earn Aer Lingus Avios is to transfer credit card points to the program. Both American Express Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards allow you to transfer points to the AerClub program at a 1:1 ratio.

So, for instance, if you had 20,000 Chase points, you could transfer those to the Aer Lingus AerClub program and receive 20,000 Avios.

Additionally, Capital One Rewards allows you to transfer miles at a 1:1 ratio to the British Airways Executive Club program. Then, you can transfer Avios from British Airways to Aer Lingus as described above. The Citi ThankYou Rewards program allows 1:1 points transfers to the Qatar Airways Privilege Club program. Then, you can transfer Avios from Qatar Airways to Aer Lingus as described in the section above.

So, you can earn Aer Lingus Avios by making transfers from many of the major credit card rewards programs (either directly or through an intermediary program).

Aer Lingus Co-Branded Credit Card

Another very effective way to earn Aer Lingus Avios is to sign up for the Aer Lingus Visa Signature® Card. This card charges an annual fee of $95 and allows you to earn Aer Lingus Avios on every purchase you make, including 3X points on flight purchases from Aer Lingus, British Airways or Iberia, 2X points on hotel stays booked directly with the hotel and 1X points on all other purchases.

The Aer Lingus Visa Signature card also offers a welcome bonus for new cardmembers, which is a great way to earn Avios quickly. Here’s the current welcome bonus from this card:

As you can see, signing up for the Aer Lingus Visa Signature card is an effective way to earn Avios. However, unless you’re very loyal to Aer Lingus, you may want to check out Avios-earning co-branded credit cards from other airlines.

Flying With Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways or United Airlines

Another way to rack up Avios through the AerClub program is to take flights with Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways or United Airlines. The AerClub program doesn’t allow members to earn Avios for flights with any other partner airlines.

You’ll earn 3X Avios per $1 spent on airfare with any of the four previously mentioned airlines. And you can earn even more Avios if you’re an elite status member with the Aer Lingus AerClub program.

Other Ways to Earn Avios

There are many other ways to earn Avios through the AerClub program, including booking hotels, renting cars, buying merchandise through the Aer Lingus eStore, buying airport lounge passes, booking cruises and more.

While these probably won’t be the primary ways that you earn Aer Lingus Avios, they could help you rack up some extra Avios toward your next trip.

How to Book Award Flights Through Aer Lingus AerClub

Now that you know how to join Aer Lingus AerClub and how to earn Aer Lingus Avios, let’s take a look at how you can spend those Avios on award flights through this program.

First, you’ll need to log in to your AerClub account through the Aer Lingus website. Then, on the Aer Lingus website homepage, you need to once again find the “AerClub” drop-down menu. From that menu, you need to select the “Book a Reward Flight” option from the “Spend Avios” section.

You’ll then be redirected to a new page, where you can view the one-way prices of Aer Lingus award flights on certain routes. You can search for all available Aer Lingus award flights by clicking the “Buy a Reward Flight” button.

After clicking that button, you’ll be redirected to a search engine where you can search for Aer Lingus award flights just like you’d search for any other flight.

You’ll need to enter your origin, destination, whether you’re traveling one-way or round-trip, your travel dates and number of travelers. Then, you can click the “Search Flights” button. From there, you’ll be presented with a list of flights that match your search query as well as their prices in Avios.

You can learn more about the flight itinerary and layovers by clicking the “Flight details” button on the bottom-left of each flight option. You can also find out about the baggage allowance by clicking the suitcase icon on the bottom-right of each flight option.

Once you find a flight that suits your needs, you can select that flight and click the “Continue basket” button on the bottom-right corner of the screen.

At that point, you’ll be brought to the checkout page where you’ll be asked to enter your passenger information (including your contact information) as well as your credit card information (in order to pay any applicable taxes and fees).

Once you’ve completed your booking, you should receive an email confirmation of your booking to the email address that you entered in your contact information.

The Bottom Line

All in all, the Aer Lingus AerClub program isn’t a popular choice for points and miles enthusiasts as it only allows you to book award flights on Aer Lingus. However, if you are looking for an award flight on Ireland’s national airline, then the AerClub program can sometimes offer the best available rate.

Plus, earning Aer Lingus Avios is fairly easy as you can transfer credit card points from any major credit card rewards program into the program either directly or indirectly, and you can transfer Avios from any of the other frequent flyer programs that use the currency.

And, once you have a balance of Avios in your Aer Lingus AerClub account, booking an award flight on Aer Lingus is fairly simple with the AerClub program’s easy-to-use award flight search engine.