Flash Sale: 50% off Aer Lingus “Pay With Avios” fares

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Aer Lingus allows customers to pay for cash fares using Avios and for the next 72 hours, the number of Avios that Aer Lingus will charge you has been cut by 50%. Ordinarily, these “Pay with Avios” deals aren’t worth considering but with a 50% discount, things start to look interesting.

The deal

Per Aer Lingus:

Avios always saves you money on flights – and this weekend, you can get even better value with 50% off the Avios amount! For example, a €29.99 fare usually costs 4,725 Avios. However, during this flash sale, you can book that flight for just 2,363 Avios. You can use your Avios to pay for all or just some of the cost of your flight, including seats and bags.

Key terms

• Options for any eligible flight will be shown automatically when you are logged in and have sufficient Avios in your AerClub account.
• Your discount options will depend on your Avios balance and the total cost of your journey.
• The 50% discount is only valid on bookings made between the 14 and 16 October 2022 on aerlingus.com and on the Aer Lingus app.
• The 50% off discount will be applied directly on the portion of the flight paid with Avios, either partial or full redemption.
• Additional services acquired during the booking process are excluded and will have to be paid with your credit or debit card.
• The price of your flight will adjust automatically based on your chosen discount and will include the 50% off the Avios amount.

Full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion page.

How to Pay with Avios

Simple:

• Log in to Aer Club
• Search for flights in the usual way
• Select your flights in the usual way*
• Head to the payment page where you’ll be offered the chance to pay with Avios (in part or in full).

*Pay with Avios is available only where all flights within the booking are marketed and operated by Aer Lingus or on Aer Lingus Regional flights sold via Aer Lingus.com or the Aer Lingus app. Pay with Avios is not available on bookings that contain a code share segment.

Quick thoughts

Based on the example that we have been given by Aer Lingus^, if 2,363 Avios will pay for a €29.99 fare, every Avios being used is knocking off ~1.27 euro cents off the cost of the booking and as 1.27 euro cents equal (approximately) 1.235 US cents, that not a bad deal at all.

Sure, it’s not too tricky to get a lot more value out of an Avios balance if you put in some effort (I get more value when I book an expensive short-haul cash fare as an award), and the fact that Pay with Avios can only be used on bookings that include Aer Lingus flights only (you can’t use Avios to pay for bookings that include codeshares) limits the scope of this promotion somewhat, but this is still a deal that could save flyers some cash.

It’s especially nice that you don’t have to rely on finding award availability to make the most of this promotion (Avios can be used to pay for all revenue fares as long as the booking only contains Aer Lingus flights), and the fact that Pay with Avios bookings earn redeemable miles and elite qualifying credits means that someone using this promotion doesn’t have to give up the earnings that usually come with bookings paid for with a credit card. That’s two bits of good news right there.

There is, however, one word of caution that anyone considering crediting Aer Lingus flights to the British Airways Executive Club should note – Aer Lingus bookings don’t currently earn BA Tier Points, and the highly discounted Business Class fares (fare code P) don’t earn any Avios either.

^Currently, I don’t have any Avios in my Aer Lingus account and I haven’t had time to transfer any in so I haven’t checked the numbers via a dummy booking

Bottom line

Aer Lingus is running a 3-day promotion (ending Sunday 16 October) which allows members of its Aer Club to use 50% fewer Avios when using Avios to pay for a revenue fare.

For some, this won’t be an interesting promotion as with a bit of effort and flexibility, it’s possible to get better value elsewhere (short-haul award bookings). The fact, however, remains that this promotion offers a path to redeeming Avios at a reasonable price point and a chance to save some cash, and with economies on both sides of the pond looking more than a little shaky, I suspect that a lot of people are finding that saving cash is more important right now than getting maximum value out of every Avios they hold.