I wrote last week about how there is STILL some pretty good transatlantic business-class availability on Aer Lingus this summer and fall. I picked up 2 seats myself last week as part of our planned fall trip to Europe (more on that shortly!) and thought I would write a post on how to pick your Aer Lingus Seats
Booking Aer Lingus with British Airways Avios
As I mentioned in last week’s article about Aer Lingus, you almost certainly want to book your Aer Lingus flight using British Airways Avios. Not only are Avios transferrable from American Express Membership Rewards as well as Chase Ultimate Rewards, because they have a distance-based award chart, there are some definite bargains!
(SEE ALSO: Chase Ultimate Rewards: 5 reasons I think they’re the best miles out there)
Boston to Dublin is a special case – it clocks in 2993 flown miles
and fits in RIGHT under the 3000 flown mile tier on the British Airways award chart, meaning it only cost 12,500 Avios to fly it one-way in economy or 25,000 Avios in business class. Note though that the business class price is increasing at the end of April.
(SEE ALSO: 6 winners and losers with the British Airways devaluation)
How to pick your Aer Lingus seats
You have to call in to use Avios to book on Aer Lingus (you can’t book it online), and when you’re given a confirmation number, that’s the BRITISH AIRWAYS confirmation number, so it’s no good when trying to pick seats on Aer Lingus.
(SEE ALSO: When booking with Avios, make sure to get a confirmation number for the airline you’re FLYING on!)
(SEE ALSO: The trick to getting your AA / US confirmation number when using British Airways Avios)
You can use this trick via the Royal Jordanian website to find the confirmation number for Aer Lingus, and then call up Aer Lingus at (516) 622-4022 (Hat Tip: the comments of this Out and Out post) to book your seats.
Once you give them the Aer Lingus confirmation number, you will be able to pick your seats. Since we’re flying together, I opted for seats 4H and 4K.
I can then go back to Royal Jordanian and see our seat numbers
Now I just have to fight with my wife for the window seat!!! 😀
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I booked a similar fall flight with Avios a week ago. British Airways gave me the Aer Lingus confirmation number and when I called to choose seats I was told my tickets are not “issued”. I have called BA back twice and they keep telling me it will be “soon”. Is it normal to take over 7 days?
That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. I think in most cases they would happen pretty much instantly. Can you see your booking on the Royal Jordanian site using the trick I’ve written about
Yes, I can see my reservation on Royal Jordanian and it shows the same confirmation number that BA gave me when I called to make the reservation. Everything seems to be in order except for BA not issuing the tickets.
Weird – I think you’re going to have to try calling BA again or maybe try Tweeting them? Sometimes you can get better service that way
I booked DUS-NYC on Ar Berlin using Avios on BA then went in to Royal Jordanian who let me book a seat. Maybe you can do the same with Aer Lingus. BA have been having massive IT problems the past few weeks so it seems. It took me three weeks and three[long] calls to customer support to get the Avios back ona cancelled BA award ticker.
Thanks for the suggestion, but for my flight the Royal Jordanian page says “Booking is not eligible for flight changes online” and there don’t seem to be option to select seats.
You won’t be able to do it online – you’ll need to call Aer Lingus. Using the Royal Jordanian page is just to get your AER LINGUS record locator instead of your BA one, since Aer Lingus won’t know the BA one.