Aer Lingus Aer Club Selling Avios With A 45% Bonus [UK]

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Aer Lingus’ Aer Club has launched an Avios sale in which it’s offering members the chance to buy Avios and receive a bonus of up to 45%. Having run the numbers, it looks like this may be a sale worth looking into if you’re short an Avios or two…especially as the maximum number of Avios you can buy has been increased.

The Offer

• Buy 1,000 – 15,000 Avios and get a 20% bonus
• Buy 20,000 – 35,000 Avios and get a 30% bonus
• Buy 40,000 – 90,000 Avios and get a 35% bonus
• Buy 100,000 – 200,000 Avios and get a 45% bonus

For the purposes of this sale, the maximum you can buy has been doubled from 100,000 to 200,000 (excluding bonuses) but it’s a little strange that the purchasing bands don’t follow on from one another – you can’t elect to buy 95,000 for example.

The Headline Terms & Conditions

• This promotion is only open to Eligible Participants. Eligible participants are AerClub members who are aged 18 or over. The Promoter reserves the right to verify the eligibility of Eligible Participants.
• Between 00:01 hr GMT Monday 29 July and 23:59 hr GMT Sunday 11 August 2019 (the ‘Promotional Period’) AerClub Members will receive up to 45% Avios bonus upon any Buy or Gift Avios transaction.
• Simply sign in to your AerClub account and make a purchase during the Promotional Period and the bonus Avios will automatically be applied to your purchase.
• Eligible Participants may Gift Avios Points (purchase for someone else) during the promotional period, provided you provide the recipient’s membership number, in which case the recipient will receive up to 45% bonus Avios.
• During the Promotion Period the purchase allowance for Eligible Participants will temporarily increase from 100,000 Avios to 200,000 Avios. After the promotional period the annual purchase limit will revert back to 100,000 Avios and any purchases made during the Promotional period will count towards this annual limit.
• Eligible Participants may not exceed the 200,000 temporary promotional Avios Points limit. Bonus Avios do not count towards your annual limit.

Full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion page

The Math

The way the promotion has been structured the price per Avios will vary from band to band and within each band as well. This means that the very best deal on offer (the lowest cost/Avios) is to be found by purchasing the highest possible number of Avios….although the difference is marginal.

Here’s how this works for the uppermost band:

An Aer Club member purchasing 100,000 Avios will net 145,000 Avios (after the bonus is applied) at a total cost of £1,615.

This sees the cost/Avios work out to be £0.01113.

Should an Aer Club member buy the full allowance of 200,000, they’ll end up with 290,000 Avios at a total cost of £3,215:

That’s a cost/Avios of £0.01108.

As I said, the difference is marginal…but it’s there.

Is This A Good Deal?

As always, this comes down to what the Avios will be used for.

If you plan to hoard them in the hopes of finding a great deal somewhere down the line step away from your keyboard and go do something else – no one knows when the next Avios devaluation will hit (we’re overdue one) so hoarding the currency is a great way of losing value.

The best use of Avios is often to be found on short-haul flights intra-Europe (where taxes and fees are capped) or intra-regions elsewhere in the world where taxes are naturally low. But they can also be put to good use on Aer Lingus Business Class flights to/from the US and on Iberia Business Class transatlantic flights too as both Aer Lingus and Iberia charge considerably lower fees for Avios bookings than British Airways.

Don’t forget that Avios held in an Aer Club account can be transferred to the British Airways Executive Club or to Iberia Plus (and they can be transferred back again too).

If you’re thinking of buying Avios in this sale, the sensible thing to do is to price up the reward flights you’d like to book based on the cost of the Avios you plan to buy (checking that reward flights are actually available would be job 1) and compare that to the actual cash fare and to whatever price you think you’re prepared to pay for your flight.

If the cost of booking the reward flight is cheaper than the cash fare and is at least as low as the price you’d be willing to pay, then buying Avios in this sale should work out well. Otherwise, move on.

Anyone with a British Airways 2-4-1 voucher may do well in this sale too.

Don’t forget that you’ll still have to pay any taxes and fees due on the second ticket but with two people flying for the Avios cost of one, buying Avios in this sale and then moving them across to BA (so you can use a 2-4-1 voucher) may be an economical way to book a very nice trip – you just have to do the math to see if the costs work out in your favor.

Bottom Line

At £0.011 per Avios this is by no means a fantastic deal…but it’s also not a terrible one either.

I may have a relatively low valuation of Avios (£0.0075) but I still often get over £0.015/Avios in value when booking reward flights so there’s definitely scope for this sale to be of use – you just have to make sure you run the numbers and check that you’re coming out ahead.