JFK-SNN Aer Linus Avios booking

[Voyaging Doc]

Just called into East asia's BA line to book an RT JFK-SNN-JFK flight. The agent went through the whole process with me. Of course I nicely asked him to remove the booking fees as I could not book Aer Lingus flights over the phone. He put me on hold for 10 minutes, and then begrudgingly complied and asked for me to confirm. I confirmed and then was put on hold for the final booking process. I refreshed expertflyer and found the available seats dropped by 2 for my flights, then he gets back on the phone and said "sorry sir because these flights are not operated by Aer lingus and is operated by a separate partner you cannot use avios for redemption. Thank you." <click>.

Anyone know anything about this? I'll probably try again on the US line but I wanted to see if anyone had any similar experiences? This is my first time booking BA over the phone as I've always used avios for domestic US. These are EI flights 110 and 111, and I thought people were commonly booking these routes, especially since I've procrastinated and now there is 0 premium cabin availability.

 

[Voyaging Doc]

HUCA worked like a charm. Guess there are some agents that are just downright unpleasant no matter how respectful you come across. I'm not sure if my initial booking attempt failed because i tried to call the Hong kong line and he claimed that I couldn't use avios for EI because the flights were managed by "Air Contractors."

 

[TheBOSman]

I was about to say check if it is an Air Contractors 757 (saw one heading SNN-BOS on my pass through SNN yesterday). It should still have been bookable, as it is a damp lease situation, with an EI primary flight number and EI operations onboard. It is not too different (without getting too deep into the vagaries of airplane leasing and operations) from an American Eagle flight for AA, or a BA Cityflyer for BA. And, of course, you ended up being able to book it as the first agent was wrong. Congrats on the HUCA success!

 

[Voyaging Doc]

Thanks! It's aggravating that there is so much business availability seen on the seat maps but they don't open up more than two for partner redemptions.

What do you recommend doing in snn? Considering driving around the country

 

[TheBOSman]

Sadly I have no recommendations directly, I was flying through on BA 1 (which only has a technical stop in SNN), but the surrounding area did look lovely. Driving around sounds like a fantastic idea.

 

[Voyaging Doc]

Frustratingly only 2 X JFK-SNN-JFK coach was available for the very tight/inflexible dates I could go. The worst part is that JFK - SNN is just above the 3000 mile mark bringing it to the higher level tier redemption rate. No 2 business award availability in March . That costed me 80k avios + ~$220 - a sad redemption given that purchased tickets would have run about $1700 but i could not budge on the dates nor would I feel okay shelling out for a revenue ticket. I checked everyday for business award availability to no avail.

Got back from work today. So literally 24 hours + 25 minutes before my flight I saw 3 BOS-SNN-BOS BUSINESS availability. I called up BA Executive. Singapore and UK offices were closed and I was on hold for about 10-15 minutes. With 10 minutes left to spare I was able to super politely ask the agent to help me out to make it before the 24 hr cancel/change mark and switch to 2 biz award tickets at a different asirport, BUT she said the BOS-SNN RT x 2 would cost 160k avios. I looked it up on gcmap, expedia, etc just in case I was delirious and then asked her again super nicely that BOS-SNN is just under the 3000 mile distance and should fall under 25k avios for one-way business instead of 40k. She went on hold for a few minutes, got back on the phone and apologized stating that the calculation error was due to working with "a separate archaic system" (lingus) and verified with the rebooking team that I was correct regarding mileage. With literally 1 (ONE!) minute before the 24 hour mark she got in my booking and thanked her profusely.

So the lesson I learned is that I almost lost out on a SWEET redemption because BA Exec agents innocently and unknowingly may not necessarily be correct about partner airline redemptions, particularly ones that can't be booked in their own system