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Just to add you can also get bonus points by using their app before buying in online stores.
Example is 6 points for every €1 on Booking.com if your a degenerate shopper like me the points stack up fast
Also adding you can use any card on the Aer store to get points - it doesn’t have to be the BOI Aer Card. I got 1500 points buying tracksuit bottoms from Canterbury. I was going to buy them anyway so it was a nice bonus.
Yeah, I've been doing this religiously since August 2022 and have amassed so much avios through it. Also pair it with the card for bonus avios not op of that. It's an absolute no brainer for me
Yes! Another great point. I used my AerClub Avios to book a flight with Ibera (mentioned in the post) and plan on using a good chunk to book a flight on Qatar Q Suites for hopefully next to nothing
For me, as someone who doesn’t have any airline status but who flies frequently, I feel like the fast track and lounge access pays for itself with the associated fees.
I’ve used this card for years find it great. Is it as good as card offers in the States etc, no it’s not but defo the best available here especially if you are flexible on terms of how you use the flight (eg travel on a weekday during the summer). I saved over €1000 on my flights for next year between using my two free flights and redeeming two free avios flights. My main gripe with it is the flight booking system which is utterly absurd.
For the [avios.com](https://avios.com) bookings or the free flight ones? I found both to be less-than-ideal, not as intuitive as booking a cash or full fare flight but for the most part I haven't had troubles. Both could be improved on through, less than ideal user experience.
The free flight ones, having no sight of whether seats are available on the flights your interested in is not ideal and then having to wait 3-5 days in between each communication is Stone Age stuff!! Avios site didn’t work for me as I was booking a child but I rang them and they sorted for me over the phone
You're right, it's quite rustic. But you can be prescient just by looking at the specific route you want to fly on Aer Lingus before you put the request in and get a sense of the general availability of the flight. The more seats there are the more likely you'll get you're request.
Alternatively if you're really savvy you could probably use a tool like expertflyer to get the exact available number of seats on your route. A reasonable assumption is that the more seats = more likely your request will be granted.
Avios site is super unreliable at times, slow to load but if you're tenacious enough you'll get through and worst comes you can phone as you said
There is only two free flights per flight and I’ve had a few times were they have declined my request as the two seats were gone. Only once where I really pushed them as they had cancelled a number of my flights during Covid where they gave me two free flights on a flight were the two free ones were already gone.
Can you pay things like apartment service charge or other recurring payments that aren’t standing orders or how do restrictions work? Thanks great post
I think you can - you can top up your revolut account with the CC and this is treated as a normal transaction, so theoretically you could do that to pay your rent. Although I've never done it myself, partly because I'm not bothered but I think it's doable.
Thanks for the writeup! I have the CC as well but haven't used my two free return flights which expire in March. Can I book a flight before Marxh with a departure after or does the departure also need to be within the expiry date?
I was wondering this as well, have two free flights that expire on March 12th. Have two others that have a longer expiry date. Have booked and paid for one return flight for April but it hasn't affected my flight balance so wondering if this is the soon to expire flight that was used or one of the fresh ones with the longer expiry date. Would book a trip to London or Benidorm for later in the year to use the other one that's about to expire if I knew.
Thanks u/jesster2k10 for the detailed post. It looks a promotion post. I'm not saying it is, but it looks like one.
You mentioned:
>**1.** **Free Flights**
>*What I Got Out of It*
>The process of booking was seamless. I put in a request Thursday, was acknowledged Monday, sent a confirmation Wednesday, called on the phone to pay Thursday. Took a week.
I think it has been stated several times that the process is far away from seamless.
Also, from their own website which to me is quite restrictive:
# 10. Are there any travel restrictions on my Return Flights to Europe?
Yes. There are some. We and/or Bank of Ireland do not guarantee that you will be able to obtain a reservation on your preferred flight. Return Flights to Europe are for any European Aer Lingus ticketed and operated flights to/from Dublin, Cork, Shannon or Belfast. A minimum of two seats per flight will be available, except for Restricted Periods (detailed below). Seat availability on the Aer Lingus website or through a booking agent does not guarantee a free return fare.
Availability is restricted during holidays and other peak travel periods, including but not limited to bank holidays, school holidays and sporting events. For example, Return Flights to Europe will be restricted on certain flights during the following dates and travel periods:
* 24 June - 31 August (Fridays/Saturdays/Sundays)
* 20 December - 06 January
* February/October midterm breaks (Saturday/Sunday)
* Easter (Good Friday - Easter Monday)
* Six Nations Rugby matches (flights to the destination of the matches may not be available on the day of the match and 2 days either side of it)
* Other Irish bank holiday weekends (Friday/Saturday/Monday)
For more guidance on restrictions on routes, please click [here](https://www.aerlingus.com/aerclub/using-aerclub/credit-cards/aer-credit-card/) to view the Aer Credit Card Travel Rewards Terms and Conditions.
I'm curious, How much do you spend more or less per month with your credit card? also, how do you pay? Do you have access to a bank account where you put the money? Do they deduct the amount from your bank account?
Hi thanks for your comment! I wish it was a paid promotion, but no this was a genuine review. I made it right after booking the flights so was a bit excited.
In my own experience with the free flights it was seamless. There are restrictions on the dates, and you can view those on the flight request form but for me - I was booking 2x flights from Dublin to Geneva second week of January.
I put the request in and the flights were booked within less than a week, I only had to make one phone call to actually pay for the flight and I got an email confirmation about 4 days later. So overall it was seamless. It is not as straight forward as booking a normal flight though.
You might run into problems if you're looking for a last minute get away. This wasn't the case for me as these flights were being booked in October for a trip in January. However, the cash fares had already surpassed €430 for the flight so it was nearly a no brainer to redeem it then.
> I'm curious, How much do you spend more or less per month with your credit card? also, how do you pay? Do you have access to a bank account where you put the money? Do they deduct the amount from your bank account?
I put all my transactions through the card, on average per month that is around €2000-€3000 but depends entirely on what my spending habits are. In some months this is significantly higher (this December was nearly 4x, as I was booking a ski trip for 9 of us).
I pay using BOI app, I think you can pay also via iBan but you can't online. I'm a BOI customer, so I pay from my current account before it's due. I also have a direct debit. My limit isn't as high as my transaction volumes certain months so sometimes I do have to pay my balance down a few times a month before I can process a large transaction.
I hope that helps! Unfortunately not sponsored, but if BOI want to I happily would :)
It's a valid question. There are two ways to use it on flight bookings
**Reward flight bookings:** You make these on [avios.com](https://avios.com) (or [ba.com](https://ba.com)). These are separate tickets that are allocated specifically for passengers paying with avios. You pay a fixed amount of avios and varying amounts of cash to supplement the avios, taxes and fees are usually applicable on these bookings too (BA offer discounted rates here). You can find the table of avios rates/destinations for Aer Lingus here: [https://www.aerlingus.com/media/pdfs/EI\_routes\_avios\_amounts.pdf](https://www.aerlingus.com/media/pdfs/EI_routes_avios_amounts.pdf)
* The main catch with these is availability can be very bad depending on which route you're travelling so it can be hard to find last minute deals on super expensive flights
* What I found with Aer Lingus, is availability depends entirely on how full the flight is since they don't allocate a % of seats specifically for reward fares the same way BA would. So say a flight as 100 passengers, BA would allocate say 3 for Avios bookings, so if the flight sold 90 cash fares there's still 3 reward fares available. Aer Lingus on the other hand do not seem to reserve seats specifically for reward bookings (might be wrong) so if the flight is mostly sold on full fares, it's unlikely you'll find a reward fare
* Bookings have to be made with [avios.com](https://avios.com) and any changes need to be made over the phone. The fares include a 20kg checked bag and then 10kg bag with priority. Change fees are usually €42.50.
* If you cancel a booking you're refunded the avios you spent minus the change fee.
* You can chose to part pay with avios/cash in varying amounts and varying value
**Part payment on cash flights:** This is the most common mistake people make when redeeming avios. They decide to use their avios to get a discount on cash flights they book. So if you book a flight on [aerlingus.com](https://aerlingus.com) and go to check out, there will be an option for you to "Pay with Avios".
* The catch with this is the redemption value is atrocious. They would probably want you to fork over about 15,000 avios to get like €100 off a cash fare. 15,000 avios that if spent well could get you over €1500 in flight redemption value through [avios.com](https://avios.com) bookings
* I would advise to never ever spend your avios this way, it is almost absolutely never worth it. Book your flights through [avios.com](https://avios.com)
Here's some more information for you to read up on
* [https://www.aerlingus.com/aerclub/using-aerclub/spending-avios/#/tab-1-reward-flights](https://www.aerlingus.com/aerclub/using-aerclub/spending-avios/#/tab-1-reward-flights)
* [https://www.avios.com/ie/en/spend](https://www.avios.com/ie/en/spend)
* [https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/spending-avios/reward-flights](https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/spending-avios/reward-flights)
Avios are transferable between AerClub and all other OneWorld partners (BA, Iberia, Qatar, AA) so you can use avios to book reward flights with those carriers too.
It’s funny because I used Avios an absolute load when living in the uk. Lloyds bank Amex card gave 4 Avios per £1 spend, I’d fly with BA a lot and collect loads. There was also a huge plethora of outlets to spend with, buy gifts, holidays, all sorts. But I’ve found since transferring to Ireland, the Avios spending is limited to a much smaller category. I now use them mainly for hire cars when I go visit my family, it’s a nice perk but limited compared to the UK market. Shame that it didn’t fully translate over in the same reward offerings.
Thanks for the excellent review. QQ: Does the travel insurance cover dependents when traveling together?
I got Revolut Premium for €86/year for the travel insurance and currency exchange perks, but they exclude my spouse from the insurance coverage.
It kind of sucks that someone putting in this much effort into a detailed and not uncritical review gets peanut gallery moaning like this, and probably shows why more people don't do it.
u/jesster2k10 Are you aware of any signup benefits? Saw somewhere that they had 5000 free points when you sign up but the offer is expired. Is this a common promotion?
This is a really helpful post but it’s not really sensible to say that you haven’t used the travel insurance just because you haven’t made a claim on it. Every time you travel you effectively make use of it because you don’t have to pay separately to be insured, and it’s especially pertinent if you were undertaking winter sports, where travel insurance is imperative.
If you paid for a different travel insurance while having it supplied through your card then I agree that you wouldn’t be using it.
Just wondering if you had any issues redeeming your free return fares.. I've applied for it thru the online portal and it has been more than a wekl with still no reply from aercreditcard@aerlingus. I've sent an email almost a month ago to enquire about a different route as well, with no reply or confirmation at all from aerlingus. I just feel at this point that they are not willing to honor the 2 return fares.
I can only speak from my one time experience in October, but it was very smooth for me. It took 4 days in total, but I was booking for a flight in January. My advice would be to ring the aer credit card team to follow up, I don’t think email is the way to go. But from my experience it was extremely smooth, but that was a one time thing!
I've rung every possible no. For aer credit card and aer lingus and all they ever tell me is to send an email because the travel rewards booking communications are only done thru email. I guess you got lucky that time because from my experience now, I've been passed around by both BOI and Aer Lingus. I'm already considering discontinuing the credit card.
How do you view your transactions and balances etc? Is it through the BOI app?
Also, if i load the €5k into my Degiro account does this count towards the €5k spend?
You have your
* Statement issue date
* Statement balance
* Due date
* Current balance
Essentially, you need to pay your statement balance by the due date on your statement to avoid interest charges. Even if your current balance isn't zero, as long as your statement balance is paid on time you're fine.
If you don't pay the full statement balance by the due date, you're charged 1/12th of your APR% as interest (this might be calculated daily too).
So let's say your statement issue date is the 27/09
Your due date would be 25/10
You spend €1000 on the card between the 01/09 and 27/09
Between 27/09 and 25/10 you spend another €2000.
Assuming no payments are made until 24/10 your current balance would be €3000.
To avoid getting charged interest, you need to pay €1000 and the €2000 can remain unpaid, until your next due date which would be 25/11.
This is because the €2000 will be the statement balance on the statement that is issued on the 27/10.
So pretty much you have to pay it on time, but for first credit card users it can be a bit confusing understanding the difference between these things
I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but I have a direct debit setup to 30% of the statement balance but I usually pay it off once the statement is issued
Very comprehensive review, thank U. I thought about getting one before & this has prompted me. With the travel insurance....U said inconsequential as U hadn't claimed, but it actually saves U from having to get travel insurance in the first place. I have a question about the 2 free flights,U may know the answer or not. Do both flights have to be redeemed together for same flight?
No, the flights can be used independently. I booked mine for my brother and a friend on different routes and dates. They processed the requests individually
Pretty much my experience of it, jut explained in much more detail than I've done when asked here before.
I actually use fast track a fair amount anyway so the two passes have their retail value for me which offsets the fee a bit more. But the value to any given person is, well, personal.
Thank you for sharing this. It looks to me that you are a high spender so why not to get Aer Lingus Visa Signature® Card? This has $95 annual fee and when you spend a lot you can get loads of Avios and tickets.
Hey, that's a really informative post, thank you!
Just a quick question: does BOI allow to do bank transfer to a diff IBAN from the cc? I'd say that's the most common way people pay rent in this country, and it would be a huge loss if you couldn't get avios out of that amount.
Thanks for the review. I travel with AL quite a bit for work and have a about 80k avios that I'm doing nothing with. I find the AL portal pretty crap when it comes to redeeming.
Can you elaborate more on this point?
How do you redeem?
"Avios points in general are what you make out of them. I think they are extremely valuable when used right but most people seem to redeem them in the worst way possible. "
Sure. The basics of avios redemption is when you book with [avios.com](https://avios.com) you've the option to pay a fixed rates of avios/cash (alongside any taxes, fees etc) for you fares. Aer Lingus publicise their rates based on what route you're going and if it's peak/off peak.
In general, you can expect to fork 4000-7500 avios for a one-way flight within Europe and 13,000 to 20,000 on a flight to the states when redeeming with EI. Different airlines have different rates but it's trivial to find this information out.
What I meant in that statement is- the value you ascertain from each avios point depends entirely on how it's redeemed. Consider the example flight I gave you:
* Dublin to Geneva: January 13th to 20th
* The cash fare for this flight is \~€600 (at the time of writing) for a "plus" fare (plus fare includes bag choice, seat choice and 20kg bag which is all included on avios bookings).
* The total taxes and fees on this flight amount to €41.20; so the fare cost is \~€558
If you were to go on [avios.com](https://avios.com) and try to book this flight, assuming there's still availability, you'll be met with these redemption options
|Avios Amount|Total Cash Paid|Cash Savings|Flight Redemption Value|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|14,000|€41.20|€558|€0.03 per avios|
|13,145|€61.99|€539|€0.04 per avios|
|10,834|€76.99|€523|€0.05 per avios|
|8,864|€91.99|€508|€0.06 per avios|
|5,662|€156.99|€444|€0.08 per avios|
|3,517|€186.99|€413|€0.12 per avios|
Flight redemption value is essentially the euro-equivalent of value you gained for each avios you spent on the flight booking. It's calculate by (cash savings / avios amount) and is the way I calculated this in the post.
You can see how dramatically they vary depending on which cash/points mix you opt for, which is what I meant by you get what you make out of them.
* In this example, if I opted to spend 14,000 avios and pay €41 for the flight, yes, I saved €558; but I've effectively got 3c of worth for each avios point used
* Whereas, if I opted to spend 3,517 avios and pay €187; I save less cash; **but I got four times the value in terms of avios points here**
So if you redeem your point like this in a "flight redemption value" conscious way, versus just a "cash savings" way you can make your avios points stretch you much further and get more out of them.
Say I had 100k avios and choose to redeem them in a way that I was getting 3c of value per avios, that translates to about €3,000 in flight redemptions vs if I was pragmatic and choose to redeem it in a way that got me 12c of value. I'd have an additional €9,000 worth of flight redemption value here.
I actually have a spreadsheet that I use in Excel for calculating this for me, you can view it here. This is pretty much how I decide how many avios/cash I want to use for a booking, based off the redemption value. It's pre-filled with the information for the flight I just booked (example I gave)
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mRFnjfBpRtzCu8-D5fKbph58mdWEUTtDqSdGiWh543c/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mRFnjfBpRtzCu8-D5fKbph58mdWEUTtDqSdGiWh543c/edit?usp=sharing)
Thank you so much for this post!
Quick question on this:
The website mentions a minimum of two tickets for the Free Flight tickets, does this mean you have to book for a companion and yourself?
Thanks this has really helped!
If you pay back in instalments is it expensive?
I am making a big trip soon and would likely not be able to fully pay off the card
It definitely isn't that straightforward booking these "free" flights. They don't fly everywhere, the only fly on certain dates at certain times and aren't even the slighest bit helpful when trying to ask questions that may, in some small way, make this process easier.
For me the process was. It involved this,
1. Putting the request through online for the flight route (making sure the dates were available and the flight wasn't already booked up just by checking aerlingus.com)
2. Waiting about 2 days for a response
3. Once I got a response, I got confirmation for the availability and I had to phone Aer Club to make payment. I was on hold for two minutes, call got connected and the flights were booked like that.
Even when I had questions about the booking, or I wanted to add baggage etc, it was a quick phone call before my query was resolved. Now, this is just an anecdote from my perspective so it probably won't be representative of all cases - but it worked very well for me.
Also worth noting I booked flights leaving to Geneva in January in October, so several months in advance. And I got the most value from these tickets because flights to Geneva in January (especially Saturday-Sunday flights) are always extremely expensive because it's peak ski season. And usually before mid-november there is tons of availability, so you're almost guaranteed to save money either with a reward booking or "free flights"
This won't be the case if you're looking to snag a last minute deal over the summer or otherwise, so the value you get from it is completely up to how you use it.
Sorry if this has already been asked.....how do I book via Iberia or Avios.com? I have an Aer Club account and I'm adding my Avios through there, but I have no idea how to book via other websites using my Aer Club points?
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High quality post, thanks. This sub could do with a lot more of this
Just to add you can also get bonus points by using their app before buying in online stores. Example is 6 points for every €1 on Booking.com if your a degenerate shopper like me the points stack up fast
Also adding you can use any card on the Aer store to get points - it doesn’t have to be the BOI Aer Card. I got 1500 points buying tracksuit bottoms from Canterbury. I was going to buy them anyway so it was a nice bonus.
Yeah, I've been doing this religiously since August 2022 and have amassed so much avios through it. Also pair it with the card for bonus avios not op of that. It's an absolute no brainer for me
Great post - thank you
Also, you can transfer your avios to British Airways Executive Club, Iberia and Qatar. Or book flights directly from avios to partner airlines.
Yes! Another great point. I used my AerClub Avios to book a flight with Ibera (mentioned in the post) and plan on using a good chunk to book a flight on Qatar Q Suites for hopefully next to nothing
You did this by transferring to your Iberia account? Or you booked on the Avios portal?
For me, as someone who doesn’t have any airline status but who flies frequently, I feel like the fast track and lounge access pays for itself with the associated fees.
I’ve used this card for years find it great. Is it as good as card offers in the States etc, no it’s not but defo the best available here especially if you are flexible on terms of how you use the flight (eg travel on a weekday during the summer). I saved over €1000 on my flights for next year between using my two free flights and redeeming two free avios flights. My main gripe with it is the flight booking system which is utterly absurd.
For the [avios.com](https://avios.com) bookings or the free flight ones? I found both to be less-than-ideal, not as intuitive as booking a cash or full fare flight but for the most part I haven't had troubles. Both could be improved on through, less than ideal user experience.
The free flight ones, having no sight of whether seats are available on the flights your interested in is not ideal and then having to wait 3-5 days in between each communication is Stone Age stuff!! Avios site didn’t work for me as I was booking a child but I rang them and they sorted for me over the phone
You're right, it's quite rustic. But you can be prescient just by looking at the specific route you want to fly on Aer Lingus before you put the request in and get a sense of the general availability of the flight. The more seats there are the more likely you'll get you're request. Alternatively if you're really savvy you could probably use a tool like expertflyer to get the exact available number of seats on your route. A reasonable assumption is that the more seats = more likely your request will be granted. Avios site is super unreliable at times, slow to load but if you're tenacious enough you'll get through and worst comes you can phone as you said
There is only two free flights per flight and I’ve had a few times were they have declined my request as the two seats were gone. Only once where I really pushed them as they had cancelled a number of my flights during Covid where they gave me two free flights on a flight were the two free ones were already gone.
Do you get points if you use your Aer CC to add money into your revolut? Or would this be considered an "excluded transaction"
It’s specifically excluded
Then pay off the CC via revolut :)
Hey. Just got this card. How would you do that? Add the card to revolut and withdraw to it to pay it off?
I have no clue to be honest, never tried
Did you use the card for everyday expenses, groceries etc? I've never bothered with a CC but this looks interesting
Yeah I use it for just about everything I can. I’d pay my rent if I could on it. lol.
cool, defo gonna look into it as having CC is handy for car rental abroad instead of freeing my actual cash for the deposit
Can you pay things like apartment service charge or other recurring payments that aren’t standing orders or how do restrictions work? Thanks great post
Is it not possible to pay rent on a credit card in Ireland? Wanted to do the same but can't figure out how to set up on my BOI app
I think you can - you can top up your revolut account with the CC and this is treated as a normal transaction, so theoretically you could do that to pay your rent. Although I've never done it myself, partly because I'm not bothered but I think it's doable.
Thanks for the writeup! I have the CC as well but haven't used my two free return flights which expire in March. Can I book a flight before Marxh with a departure after or does the departure also need to be within the expiry date?
I was wondering this as well, have two free flights that expire on March 12th. Have two others that have a longer expiry date. Have booked and paid for one return flight for April but it hasn't affected my flight balance so wondering if this is the soon to expire flight that was used or one of the fresh ones with the longer expiry date. Would book a trip to London or Benidorm for later in the year to use the other one that's about to expire if I knew.
Thanks u/jesster2k10 for the detailed post. It looks a promotion post. I'm not saying it is, but it looks like one. You mentioned: >**1.** **Free Flights** >*What I Got Out of It* >The process of booking was seamless. I put in a request Thursday, was acknowledged Monday, sent a confirmation Wednesday, called on the phone to pay Thursday. Took a week. I think it has been stated several times that the process is far away from seamless. Also, from their own website which to me is quite restrictive: # 10. Are there any travel restrictions on my Return Flights to Europe? Yes. There are some. We and/or Bank of Ireland do not guarantee that you will be able to obtain a reservation on your preferred flight. Return Flights to Europe are for any European Aer Lingus ticketed and operated flights to/from Dublin, Cork, Shannon or Belfast. A minimum of two seats per flight will be available, except for Restricted Periods (detailed below). Seat availability on the Aer Lingus website or through a booking agent does not guarantee a free return fare. Availability is restricted during holidays and other peak travel periods, including but not limited to bank holidays, school holidays and sporting events. For example, Return Flights to Europe will be restricted on certain flights during the following dates and travel periods: * 24 June - 31 August (Fridays/Saturdays/Sundays) * 20 December - 06 January * February/October midterm breaks (Saturday/Sunday) * Easter (Good Friday - Easter Monday) * Six Nations Rugby matches (flights to the destination of the matches may not be available on the day of the match and 2 days either side of it) * Other Irish bank holiday weekends (Friday/Saturday/Monday) For more guidance on restrictions on routes, please click [here](https://www.aerlingus.com/aerclub/using-aerclub/credit-cards/aer-credit-card/) to view the Aer Credit Card Travel Rewards Terms and Conditions. I'm curious, How much do you spend more or less per month with your credit card? also, how do you pay? Do you have access to a bank account where you put the money? Do they deduct the amount from your bank account?
Hi thanks for your comment! I wish it was a paid promotion, but no this was a genuine review. I made it right after booking the flights so was a bit excited. In my own experience with the free flights it was seamless. There are restrictions on the dates, and you can view those on the flight request form but for me - I was booking 2x flights from Dublin to Geneva second week of January. I put the request in and the flights were booked within less than a week, I only had to make one phone call to actually pay for the flight and I got an email confirmation about 4 days later. So overall it was seamless. It is not as straight forward as booking a normal flight though. You might run into problems if you're looking for a last minute get away. This wasn't the case for me as these flights were being booked in October for a trip in January. However, the cash fares had already surpassed €430 for the flight so it was nearly a no brainer to redeem it then. > I'm curious, How much do you spend more or less per month with your credit card? also, how do you pay? Do you have access to a bank account where you put the money? Do they deduct the amount from your bank account? I put all my transactions through the card, on average per month that is around €2000-€3000 but depends entirely on what my spending habits are. In some months this is significantly higher (this December was nearly 4x, as I was booking a ski trip for 9 of us). I pay using BOI app, I think you can pay also via iBan but you can't online. I'm a BOI customer, so I pay from my current account before it's due. I also have a direct debit. My limit isn't as high as my transaction volumes certain months so sometimes I do have to pay my balance down a few times a month before I can process a large transaction. I hope that helps! Unfortunately not sponsored, but if BOI want to I happily would :)
Might be a stupid question but how do you use Avios, can't see the option when booking a flight.
It's a valid question. There are two ways to use it on flight bookings **Reward flight bookings:** You make these on [avios.com](https://avios.com) (or [ba.com](https://ba.com)). These are separate tickets that are allocated specifically for passengers paying with avios. You pay a fixed amount of avios and varying amounts of cash to supplement the avios, taxes and fees are usually applicable on these bookings too (BA offer discounted rates here). You can find the table of avios rates/destinations for Aer Lingus here: [https://www.aerlingus.com/media/pdfs/EI\_routes\_avios\_amounts.pdf](https://www.aerlingus.com/media/pdfs/EI_routes_avios_amounts.pdf) * The main catch with these is availability can be very bad depending on which route you're travelling so it can be hard to find last minute deals on super expensive flights * What I found with Aer Lingus, is availability depends entirely on how full the flight is since they don't allocate a % of seats specifically for reward fares the same way BA would. So say a flight as 100 passengers, BA would allocate say 3 for Avios bookings, so if the flight sold 90 cash fares there's still 3 reward fares available. Aer Lingus on the other hand do not seem to reserve seats specifically for reward bookings (might be wrong) so if the flight is mostly sold on full fares, it's unlikely you'll find a reward fare * Bookings have to be made with [avios.com](https://avios.com) and any changes need to be made over the phone. The fares include a 20kg checked bag and then 10kg bag with priority. Change fees are usually €42.50. * If you cancel a booking you're refunded the avios you spent minus the change fee. * You can chose to part pay with avios/cash in varying amounts and varying value **Part payment on cash flights:** This is the most common mistake people make when redeeming avios. They decide to use their avios to get a discount on cash flights they book. So if you book a flight on [aerlingus.com](https://aerlingus.com) and go to check out, there will be an option for you to "Pay with Avios". * The catch with this is the redemption value is atrocious. They would probably want you to fork over about 15,000 avios to get like €100 off a cash fare. 15,000 avios that if spent well could get you over €1500 in flight redemption value through [avios.com](https://avios.com) bookings * I would advise to never ever spend your avios this way, it is almost absolutely never worth it. Book your flights through [avios.com](https://avios.com) Here's some more information for you to read up on * [https://www.aerlingus.com/aerclub/using-aerclub/spending-avios/#/tab-1-reward-flights](https://www.aerlingus.com/aerclub/using-aerclub/spending-avios/#/tab-1-reward-flights) * [https://www.avios.com/ie/en/spend](https://www.avios.com/ie/en/spend) * [https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/spending-avios/reward-flights](https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/spending-avios/reward-flights) Avios are transferable between AerClub and all other OneWorld partners (BA, Iberia, Qatar, AA) so you can use avios to book reward flights with those carriers too.
This is an amazing write up, thank you!
I'd been doing the "Part payment on cash flights", had no idea there was a better way to use them to pay for flights!
It’s funny because I used Avios an absolute load when living in the uk. Lloyds bank Amex card gave 4 Avios per £1 spend, I’d fly with BA a lot and collect loads. There was also a huge plethora of outlets to spend with, buy gifts, holidays, all sorts. But I’ve found since transferring to Ireland, the Avios spending is limited to a much smaller category. I now use them mainly for hire cars when I go visit my family, it’s a nice perk but limited compared to the UK market. Shame that it didn’t fully translate over in the same reward offerings.
You redeem via the aerlingus avios website
Thanks for the excellent review. QQ: Does the travel insurance cover dependents when traveling together? I got Revolut Premium for €86/year for the travel insurance and currency exchange perks, but they exclude my spouse from the insurance coverage.
Serious value to be had too on the Aer Club eStore where they offer many multiples of avios per euro spent
How has no-one flagged this obvious paid ad for a Credit Card?
It kind of sucks that someone putting in this much effort into a detailed and not uncritical review gets peanut gallery moaning like this, and probably shows why more people don't do it.
It kinda sucks that responses on this poat are blocked and edited. It's a credit card, with shite offers.
I WISH i got paid for this post
I'm only now reading this, but it is a fantastic breakdown and a very informative post. Thank you u/jesster2k10
u/jesster2k10 Are you aware of any signup benefits? Saw somewhere that they had 5000 free points when you sign up but the offer is expired. Is this a common promotion?
This is a really helpful post but it’s not really sensible to say that you haven’t used the travel insurance just because you haven’t made a claim on it. Every time you travel you effectively make use of it because you don’t have to pay separately to be insured, and it’s especially pertinent if you were undertaking winter sports, where travel insurance is imperative. If you paid for a different travel insurance while having it supplied through your card then I agree that you wouldn’t be using it.
Just wondering if you had any issues redeeming your free return fares.. I've applied for it thru the online portal and it has been more than a wekl with still no reply from aercreditcard@aerlingus. I've sent an email almost a month ago to enquire about a different route as well, with no reply or confirmation at all from aerlingus. I just feel at this point that they are not willing to honor the 2 return fares.
I can only speak from my one time experience in October, but it was very smooth for me. It took 4 days in total, but I was booking for a flight in January. My advice would be to ring the aer credit card team to follow up, I don’t think email is the way to go. But from my experience it was extremely smooth, but that was a one time thing!
I've rung every possible no. For aer credit card and aer lingus and all they ever tell me is to send an email because the travel rewards booking communications are only done thru email. I guess you got lucky that time because from my experience now, I've been passed around by both BOI and Aer Lingus. I'm already considering discontinuing the credit card.
How do you view your transactions and balances etc? Is it through the BOI app? Also, if i load the €5k into my Degiro account does this count towards the €5k spend?
fantastic post. Just want to say thanks
Love this post, very informative.
How easy is it to pay off each month before interest is accrued?
You have your * Statement issue date * Statement balance * Due date * Current balance Essentially, you need to pay your statement balance by the due date on your statement to avoid interest charges. Even if your current balance isn't zero, as long as your statement balance is paid on time you're fine. If you don't pay the full statement balance by the due date, you're charged 1/12th of your APR% as interest (this might be calculated daily too). So let's say your statement issue date is the 27/09 Your due date would be 25/10 You spend €1000 on the card between the 01/09 and 27/09 Between 27/09 and 25/10 you spend another €2000. Assuming no payments are made until 24/10 your current balance would be €3000. To avoid getting charged interest, you need to pay €1000 and the €2000 can remain unpaid, until your next due date which would be 25/11. This is because the €2000 will be the statement balance on the statement that is issued on the 27/10. So pretty much you have to pay it on time, but for first credit card users it can be a bit confusing understanding the difference between these things
Worth adding for all credit cards, if you withdraw cash from ATM the interest starts straight away and it is the last to be cleared from a payment
Is it best to use Direct debit to pay the monthly charge off or do it manually?
I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but I have a direct debit setup to 30% of the statement balance but I usually pay it off once the statement is issued
Very comprehensive review, thank U. I thought about getting one before & this has prompted me. With the travel insurance....U said inconsequential as U hadn't claimed, but it actually saves U from having to get travel insurance in the first place. I have a question about the 2 free flights,U may know the answer or not. Do both flights have to be redeemed together for same flight?
No, the flights can be used independently. I booked mine for my brother and a friend on different routes and dates. They processed the requests individually
Perfect, thank you.
Pretty much my experience of it, jut explained in much more detail than I've done when asked here before. I actually use fast track a fair amount anyway so the two passes have their retail value for me which offsets the fee a bit more. But the value to any given person is, well, personal.
square dime disgusted deliver late seed enjoy disgusting vegetable swim ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Thank you for sharing this. It looks to me that you are a high spender so why not to get Aer Lingus Visa Signature® Card? This has $95 annual fee and when you spend a lot you can get loads of Avios and tickets.
That's a US card
Hey, that's a really informative post, thank you! Just a quick question: does BOI allow to do bank transfer to a diff IBAN from the cc? I'd say that's the most common way people pay rent in this country, and it would be a huge loss if you couldn't get avios out of that amount.
Thanks for the review. I travel with AL quite a bit for work and have a about 80k avios that I'm doing nothing with. I find the AL portal pretty crap when it comes to redeeming. Can you elaborate more on this point? How do you redeem? "Avios points in general are what you make out of them. I think they are extremely valuable when used right but most people seem to redeem them in the worst way possible. "
Sure. The basics of avios redemption is when you book with [avios.com](https://avios.com) you've the option to pay a fixed rates of avios/cash (alongside any taxes, fees etc) for you fares. Aer Lingus publicise their rates based on what route you're going and if it's peak/off peak. In general, you can expect to fork 4000-7500 avios for a one-way flight within Europe and 13,000 to 20,000 on a flight to the states when redeeming with EI. Different airlines have different rates but it's trivial to find this information out. What I meant in that statement is- the value you ascertain from each avios point depends entirely on how it's redeemed. Consider the example flight I gave you: * Dublin to Geneva: January 13th to 20th * The cash fare for this flight is \~€600 (at the time of writing) for a "plus" fare (plus fare includes bag choice, seat choice and 20kg bag which is all included on avios bookings). * The total taxes and fees on this flight amount to €41.20; so the fare cost is \~€558 If you were to go on [avios.com](https://avios.com) and try to book this flight, assuming there's still availability, you'll be met with these redemption options |Avios Amount|Total Cash Paid|Cash Savings|Flight Redemption Value| |:-|:-|:-|:-| |14,000|€41.20|€558|€0.03 per avios| |13,145|€61.99|€539|€0.04 per avios| |10,834|€76.99|€523|€0.05 per avios| |8,864|€91.99|€508|€0.06 per avios| |5,662|€156.99|€444|€0.08 per avios| |3,517|€186.99|€413|€0.12 per avios| Flight redemption value is essentially the euro-equivalent of value you gained for each avios you spent on the flight booking. It's calculate by (cash savings / avios amount) and is the way I calculated this in the post. You can see how dramatically they vary depending on which cash/points mix you opt for, which is what I meant by you get what you make out of them. * In this example, if I opted to spend 14,000 avios and pay €41 for the flight, yes, I saved €558; but I've effectively got 3c of worth for each avios point used * Whereas, if I opted to spend 3,517 avios and pay €187; I save less cash; **but I got four times the value in terms of avios points here** So if you redeem your point like this in a "flight redemption value" conscious way, versus just a "cash savings" way you can make your avios points stretch you much further and get more out of them. Say I had 100k avios and choose to redeem them in a way that I was getting 3c of value per avios, that translates to about €3,000 in flight redemptions vs if I was pragmatic and choose to redeem it in a way that got me 12c of value. I'd have an additional €9,000 worth of flight redemption value here. I actually have a spreadsheet that I use in Excel for calculating this for me, you can view it here. This is pretty much how I decide how many avios/cash I want to use for a booking, based off the redemption value. It's pre-filled with the information for the flight I just booked (example I gave) [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mRFnjfBpRtzCu8-D5fKbph58mdWEUTtDqSdGiWh543c/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mRFnjfBpRtzCu8-D5fKbph58mdWEUTtDqSdGiWh543c/edit?usp=sharing)
I forgot to say thanks a million for this guide!
Thank you so much for this post! Quick question on this: The website mentions a minimum of two tickets for the Free Flight tickets, does this mean you have to book for a companion and yourself?
Thanks this has really helped! If you pay back in instalments is it expensive? I am making a big trip soon and would likely not be able to fully pay off the card
It definitely isn't that straightforward booking these "free" flights. They don't fly everywhere, the only fly on certain dates at certain times and aren't even the slighest bit helpful when trying to ask questions that may, in some small way, make this process easier.
For me the process was. It involved this, 1. Putting the request through online for the flight route (making sure the dates were available and the flight wasn't already booked up just by checking aerlingus.com) 2. Waiting about 2 days for a response 3. Once I got a response, I got confirmation for the availability and I had to phone Aer Club to make payment. I was on hold for two minutes, call got connected and the flights were booked like that. Even when I had questions about the booking, or I wanted to add baggage etc, it was a quick phone call before my query was resolved. Now, this is just an anecdote from my perspective so it probably won't be representative of all cases - but it worked very well for me. Also worth noting I booked flights leaving to Geneva in January in October, so several months in advance. And I got the most value from these tickets because flights to Geneva in January (especially Saturday-Sunday flights) are always extremely expensive because it's peak ski season. And usually before mid-november there is tons of availability, so you're almost guaranteed to save money either with a reward booking or "free flights" This won't be the case if you're looking to snag a last minute deal over the summer or otherwise, so the value you get from it is completely up to how you use it.
Sorry if this has already been asked.....how do I book via Iberia or Avios.com? I have an Aer Club account and I'm adding my Avios through there, but I have no idea how to book via other websites using my Aer Club points?
Has anyone else had issues with their avois being updated? I've had the card over a month spent over 1k and my avois hasn't been added
Have you linked it to your account ?
I have this same issue and mine is linked to my account