All you need to know about earning Avios in Aer Lingus AerClub

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

Aer Lingus AerClub finally launched last week. This is important news for Head for Points readers because Avios is the currency of AerClub.

Any Avios points you earn in AerClub will (eventually) be transferrable across to British Airways Executive Club or avios.com via ‘Combine My Avios’. The functionality is not yet available but it has been promised.

What this means is that any interesting promotions which become available to AerClub members should be of interest to UK readers, because of the ability to move the points across.

The key point – from my view – is that United Airlines is an AerClub partner. I wrote a separate article about this today. You can now earn Avios in AerClub when you fly United Airlines.

aerclub-membership-cards

Earning Avios in AerClub

The home page for earning Avios is here.

Earning from flying Aer Lingus:

Aer Lingus flights earn Avios at the rate of 3 per € spent. This is based on the cash price of your flight, excluding “Government taxes”. In the small print of AerClub, however, it says “excluding taxes, fees and charges imposed other than by Aer Lingus”. This means that they may also deduct landing charges etc which will leave very little behind.

For flights not paid for in €, you will earn 4 Avios per £1 or 3 Avios per US or Canadian $1. Flights booked in other currencies will be converted to €.

You do not earn Avios on ancillary charges such as baggage or seat selection fees.

Earning from flying partners:

Because Aer Lingus is not in the oneworld alliance, you cannot credit all oneworld partner flights to AerClub. The only participating airlines are British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Qantas and United.

In most cases, the earning rates are the same as crediting flights to British Airways Executive Club so there is no advantage to crediting to AerClub. The differences are – and frankly this is a pretty odd list:

Qantas Premium Economy is 110% in AerClub vs 100% in BAEC
Qantas Economy (K, L, M, V, S) is 50% in Aer Club vs 25% in BAEC
Cathay Pacific Premium Economy (W only) is 110% in BAEC vs 100% in AerClub
Cathay Pacific Economy (H only) is 100% in BAEC vs 50% in AerClub
Cathay Pacific Economy (L, K, M, V) is 50% in AerClub vs 25% in BAEC
Cathay Pacific Economy (M, N, Q, S) is 25% in BAEC but nothing in AerClub

Earning from non-flying partners:

I was disappointed by this list, to be honest. Given that AerClub has launched six months late I would have expected a better selection of deals to have been negotiated. At present, the only partners active are:

Kildare Village and its sister facilities including Bicester Village (earn 1.25 Avios per €1)

Aer Lingus Holidays (1 Avios per €1)

Appleby Jewellers, Dublin (1-5 Avios per €1)

The Avios eStore

Hotel bookings via Agoda, Kaligo.com or Rocketmiles

There is one upside I spotted. As long as you use a different email address, you will be able to claim a new ‘first time booker’ bonus on a Kaligo or Rocketmiles booking because you can give your AerClub number instead of your BAEC number.

Spending Avios in AerClub:

The Aer Lingus website page for spending Avios is here.

I wrote my own take about spending Avios from AerClub here.

Because redemptions are handled via avios.com, there is nothing new to know here. There is nothing you can do with Avios in AerClub that you cannot also do with Avios in avios.com.

Conclusion

The key thing to know about AerClub is that it lets you earn Avios when flying with United Airlines.

It will also let you earn a 2nd ‘first time hotel booker’ bonus from Agoda, Kaligo.com or Rocketmiles because you can now credit a booking to AerClub.

There are no exclusive redemptions which would require you to transfer your points to AerClub and no interesting partnerships (yet?). The failure to have ‘Combine My Avios’ operating from Day 1 is also frustrating.

We will keep you updated with AerClub as new opportunities to earn and spend Avios emerge.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

Aer Lingus and AerClub, British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Joe says:

6 Dec6 December 03:50

Sorry completely OT.

Is there a way to transfer AMEX MR points via another program between different countries (ie. hotel loyalty program)?

Online chatter says that direct transfer between AMEX accounts in different countries is rarely successful.
- mzb00 says:
  
  6 Dec6 December 07:42
  
  I transferred between my UK and US Amex MR accounts with no issues twice in the past years. Not sure why you’d say it’s rarely successful.
  - Rob says:
    
    6 Dec6 December 07:57
    
    Transfer between different country Amex accounts is very easy – IF you get an agent who knows how. I do it annually as I have a Dollar card too.
    
    Remember you get a bonus based on the FX rate, so 100 UK MR points becomes 118 points in a Euro country or 125 in the US.
    - Anon says:
      
      6 Dec6 December 13:14
      
      While we are off topic – can you still transfer Amex MR between spouses when closing an Amex Gold Pref a/c?
    - Joe says:
      
      6 Dec6 December 19:36
      
      Thanks for the replies everybody. Had some different opinions on FlyerTalk forums after a quick search.
Graeme says:

6 Dec6 December 05:07

I guess there’s no Aer Club affiliated credit card yet?
- Trent says:
  
  6 Dec6 December 06:37
  
  No, there is no credit card yet. That is what I am hotly waiting for. It’s the one thing I sorely miss living in Ireland. It’s a shame BA don’t do an Irish card affiliation.
  
  Nice tip on on the first time booker bonus incidentally – will have to give that a whirl.
  - Rob says:
    
    6 Dec6 December 07:59
    
    The new IAG Amex contract includes an Irish card option. There are only 100,000 AerClub members though, many outside Ireland, so whether it makes sense is debatable.
    - ADS says:
      
      6 Dec6 December 10:31
      
      having spent the last 6 months dealing with Amex’s EuroDollar team – you may find that it’s not worth the hassle !
      
      my favourite phonecall:
      
      me: explained what i’m calling about
      Amex: you need to call this number xxxx
      me: that looks very similar to the number i just dialled … in fact it is the number i just dialled
      Amex: oh, they were busy, so you’ve come through to me – i can’t help
      me: so there’s no point me redialling, or the same thing will happen again
      Amex: do you want me to put you through to the right department
      me: yes please !
      - Rob says:
        
        6 Dec6 December 10:39
        
        Right person = done quickly, points move in 3-4 days
        Wrong person = can’t be done, can be done but exchange rate is 1:1 etc
Dirtyneedebluesky says:

6 Dec6 December 06:50

Naughty Raffles!! Not changing your password in all of that time (& then declaring certain elements your password doesn’t contain!!)

It’s a pain but I’d seriously recommend you consider reviewing your password policy in the near future 🙂
- Matt says:
  
  6 Dec6 December 07:51
  
  #!$%^&*(}?
  Is probably safer than Raffles1
- budthecat says:
  
  7 Dec7 December 14:39
  
  I got the sign up invite today but i can’t link to my Avios account. I have tried changing password as i had the same problem as Raffles but despite using the correct username and acceptable password i keep getting a message that “These details do not match Avios records. Please try again”.
  
  Anyone else having this problem?
  - Uri says:
    
    7 Dec7 December 19:19
    
    I have that exact problem!
    - Alex says:
      
      14 Dec14 December 22:58
      
      Same here! What should I do to get that sorted?
      - Alex says:
        
        24 Dec24 December 16:41
        
        Has anyone successfully got around this issue? I’ve tried changing password with no success. I still got “These details do not match Avios records. Please try again.” Well everything matched. My account first name is hyphenated, wonder if this is an issue.
Gavin says:

6 Dec6 December 07:22

What happen with the AerClub pre-register bonus I signed up, but have not received an email invite?
- James Ward says:
  
  6 Dec6 December 07:44
  
  +1 for this. Have others received theirs? Wondering if mine went to spam. Should I wait for the email before signing in?
  - Alan says:
    
    6 Dec6 December 08:01
    
    + another 2 here (myself and wife). Would have expected an email to say it was all live and here is your membership number even if they didn’t honour the pre-register bonus.
  - Rob says:
    
    6 Dec6 December 08:41
    
    I am waiting a bit longer. It isn’t as if I need to log in over there.
  - Alan says:
    
    6 Dec6 December 08:49
    
    I received mine quite a few months ago, just showed up on my Avios.com statement.
- BigDave says:
  
  6 Dec6 December 07:56
  
  same here – signed up ages ago not heard a thing no free avios boo
  - avidsaver says:
    
    6 Dec6 December 08:00
    
    Ditto!
  - Rob says:
    
    6 Dec6 December 08:00
    
    The invites seem to be going out in batches – I have not got mine but I know someone who got one yesterday.
    - Dave H says:
      
      7 Dec7 December 12:38
      
      Mine has just arrived in my inbox
  - BigDave says:
    
    7 Dec7 December 13:00
    
    Today it arrived in the in-box
    – promise of 250 avios if you sign up before January 7th 2017
    – basically its a front end for avios website
    – same usename and password used on both and you can see your avios account activity on the aerlingus website
    -bit weird I thought but one less login / password to remember
James says:

6 Dec6 December 08:35

The new Aer Lingus app is a shocker (though better than the old one which was unusable). It made me change both username and password from old account and refused to let me use my email as username. Then your actual Avios total? That’s hidden on a smal button on the top left and not in the drop down with everything else – horrific UX.

Surely they could have just re-skinned the BA app?
Simon says:

6 Dec6 December 09:00

Something to note here – if you have an existing Avios account your AerClub number is your existing Avios number and points simply get deposited in that your Avios account. Your transaction history on the AerClub page is simply your Avios history carried through.

When I tried to link AerClub and Avios it kept telling me my password for Avios was incorrect – it seems that there was a more stringent password policy that AerClub were enforcing so I had to change my Avios password first to meet this criteria – similar to Rob’s experience.
- Colin JE says:
  
  9 Dec9 December 13:02
  
  Well spotted! I didn’t notice the numbers were the same.
  Bizarrely, when I first tried to register a username it didn’t allow me to use the same one I use for Avios, saying it was already taken. All became clear when it invited me to log in later using my Avios username as an alternative to my AerClub username.
rotundo says:

6 Dec6 December 09:19

For those of us flying “down the back”, crediting Aer Lingus flights to BAEC can still be more lucrative than AerClub. I priced a LHR-SFO return via Dublin (staying over a weekend), it came to £285.8 base fare + £385 taxes and charges + £14 admin fee. This would yield 1143 avios on AerClub vs 2684 avios on BAEC. (Although with such poor returns on both sides, Norwegian looks very appealing!)
- Rob says:
  
  6 Dec6 December 10:38
  
  I think we need a few definitive examples of what Aer Lingus is treating as excluded taxes.
  
  BA flights between Heathrow and Manchester often have a base fare of £4 before fuel surcharges etc. Would Awr Lingus dare to give out just 16 Avios on a similarly structured flight?
  - John says:
    
    6 Dec6 December 17:06
    
    I have had flights where BA received £2 of revenue (rest was LHR fees + APD) and I got more than 200 avios.
    
    I also have an Aegean flight coming up where they are getting £3 of revenue but going to give me 2700 miles.
Alan says:

6 Dec6 December 11:50

If you’ve already linked Avios and Aer Club then your Aer Club number seems to be your Avios.com number, so no option to get 2nd ‘first time booker’ bonus.