Getting airline upgrades with your credit card miles are not easy to do. But with this travel hack you may be able to handle it with your busy life/work schedule. When I was researching getting to the Emerald Isle in June, I priced out economy seats and business class seats. Business class was out of reach for my budget. So I went searching for a miles option. I stumbled upon a little known miles upgrade hack that helped me book business class seats for the cash price of economy tickets.
First thing you need to do is sign up for the Aer Lingus Club on their website. (Aer Lingus Create Account). Next, you would need to see the chart on this page and calculate how many miles you need to transfer from your credit card reward miles center to Aer Lingus. Do you have enough for one way or a round trip flight? If not, sorry my friend, you need to up your miles game and come back later. No worries.
A second option is to see if you have enough Avios with another partner airline of Aer Lingus, which would be British Airways, Iberia, Qatar, and Finnair. Always check to see if you can pull the Avios to Aer Lingus from these flight partners before booking.
Another option is if you have a Marriot Bonvoy account with points, you can transfer those to Aer Lingus and use those points to purchase the upgrade. The negative with this is the transfer is 3:1, points to miles. Meaning 3000 points is only 1000 miles/Avios. You will lose some of your points, so unless you are short a few miles, I would save this for hotel use only.
You can also purchase Aer Lingus Avios, which is only a good idea if you need a few miles, as this can be expensive.
Once I settled on the days I was flying to Dublin from the East Coast, I booked my Economy tickets. Always read the fine print that the seats are able to be upgraded. The next step was to email my flight information, confirmation code and any additional information to Aer Lingus. In a week, I received an email saying we were upgraded and our new tickets had been issued. Important reminder: The upgrade is ONE WAY only. I will show an example below on how many Avios miles you need in your Aer Lingus account prior to emailing for the upgrade.
So assuming we are leaving June 22 from the East Coast to Dublin, the calendar on the upgrades page is as follows: PEAK travel date as per 2025 Season Calendar
| Boston / Chicago / Cleveland / Hartford / Indianapolis / Minneapolis / Newark / New York / Philadelphia / Toronto / Washington / | Off Peak 37,000 | Peak 44,750 |
|---|
So for a family of 4: 44,750 Peak miles x 4 = 179,000 miles for all 4 seats to be upgraded to business class ONE WAY
For a couple, 2: 44,750 Peak miles x 2 = 89,500 miles for 2 seats to be upgraded to business class ONE WAY
Transfer Partners to Aer Lingus: AMEX, Chase, Capital One, Bilt, Marriot Bonvoy, Choice ,Well Fargo, HSBC, and other Avios partners (British Airways, Qatar Air, Finnair, and Iberia).
So if you are ready to try your luck on the upgrades, which is NOT guaranteed until you receive your email from Aer Lingus. Give it a try!
The most important thing is that you need to have the full amount of miles in your Aer Lingus account prior to emailing for the upgrade. If you do not get the upgrade, your Avios are not stuck, move them to another Avios airline and they can be used in the future.
Use this information page to help you navigate the miles upgrade with Aer Lingus.
Aer Lingus ONE WAY Upgrade information
Email for upgrades: [email protected]
Let say you aren’t interested in heading to Dublin, take a look to see where Aer LIngus flies (most of Europe with a stop in Dublin) and do business class seats for a portion of you journey only. Why not? You deserved to be pampered in business class.
See my Viator Shop for suggestions on tours in Ireland. Viator Shop Link
ESim Card for all you travels: Airalo
Bon Voyage Journeyologist!!
