Aerlingus AerClub/Avios

rio1

billy few mates wrote: »

That was never my experience, I was taking dozens of flights with them for the last few years and I was constantly having to claim for missing points and credits. There seemed to be no particular pattern in the random order points were credited, in most cases I’d get the outbound but not tho inbound and I’d be chasing points from previous weeks while getting points for more recent flights.
I was spending hours every week submitting claims, sending emails, calling etc. Emails would go unanswered for months. I had a spread sheet where I would try and track the flights I’d taken to see if I got the Avios and credits and I could never get it to balance.
The final straw came when they reset my account to zero while I was still trying to get missing points credited. I basically just stopped using them for business travel after that, I think I may have taken about six flights with them since then and I didn’t even bother checking if I’d been credited as I’m just letting the account wind down.
It’s a shame really as I still like the product and the service they offer. I’ve since used another couple of carriers for for my work travel and have progressed through their FF status levels without once having to chase a missing flight.
I can’t think of a single loyalty scheme, airline, car hire, hotel etc that works as badly as AerClub, even Tesco’s can manage to run a loyalty scheme that works. There are so many functioning models they could copy if they wished, they really need to go back to the drawing board with this scheme.

Maybe give them another try. Your experience was the same as mine when they started Aer Club, I had to chase on every inbound flight,

I fly pretty often, not as often as some here, but since Feb this year I’ve taken 27 Aer Lingus flight and only had to follow up the tier credits on one.

rio1

In saying that, they are far from perfect, they lost my checked bag for 3 weeks earlier in the year and it was then located in an airport lost and found....

NSAman

I can sympathise with the chasing, however, recently the points HAVE been there rather quickly and accurately.

I am not saying that Aer Lingus are perfect, but compared to other carriers which I have experienced, they have never lost my bags, they have always been "human" (apart from one incident on board which left a very sour taste for a long time).

I have in the same time, had important bags lost for a week (thanks BA) which were required for a meeting in Greece. (I had to go to the meeting in flip flops and shorts and had no back up documents).

Flown business on AA to Buenos Aires and they had no food to offer, both coming and going (11 hours is not fun with nothing to eat for almost 24 hours beforehand).

Lost bags that have never been found on a trip to Istanbul (Turkish).

Been kicked off a flight (Business class) To Korea UNITED... (united we stand, divided we fall, never again) to facilitate someone else.....

As I said Aer Lingus is not the worst and might be OK to give them another try.

Diego Tristan

billy few mates wrote: »

The final straw came when they reset my account to zero while I was still trying to get missing points credited. I basically just stopped using them for business travel after that, I think I may have taken about six flights with them since then and I didn’t even bother checking if I’d been credited as I’m just letting the account wind down.

This was the final straw, that the credits reset on your anniversary date?

That's not a problem or a final straw, it's just a basic part of how the system works.

The 0 is the current membership year balance.

Nothing to say you can't continue to claim credits for the previous membership year after the credits have reset.

FWIW, i had the same issue with flights from certain airports not crediting without using the claim form in the first year. No such problem this year for me anyway.

billy few mates

Diego Tristan wrote: »

This was the final straw, that the credits reset on your anniversary date?

That's not a problem or a final straw, it's just a basic part of how the system works.

The 0 is the current membership year balance.

It is When the missing points would have been enough to carry you over to the next tier...

billy few mates

rio1 wrote: »

Maybe give them another try. Your experience was the same as mine when they started Aer Club, I had to chase on every inbound flight,

No thanks, its not worth the effort for a cup of coffee...

Diego Tristan

billy few mates wrote: »

It is When the missing points would have been enough to carry you over to the next tier...

The credits are reset when you start a new membership year. You seem to think this wipes out your entire history of credits? My understanding of it, and this is backed up by posts i've seen either here or on Flyer Talk, is that if the missing flights when added bring you up to the next tier then your status is updated.

Not relevant that you have gone in to a new membership year. It's the date of the flight that decides what membership year the credits get added to, not the date the credits hit the account.

One man's final straw is another man's red herring.

AndyBoBandy

Diego Tristan wrote: »

My understanding of it, and this is backed up by posts i've seen either here or on Flyer Talk, is that if the missing flights when added bring you up to the next tier then your status is updated.

Is that happening automatically though? Or does it need to be chased up with them? Folk will have already had to chase up on the missing flights/Tier Credits in the first place, so the automation in the system has already failed!

Either way it doesn’t instill a whole lot of confidence in their ability to manage/run their system without flaws.

billy few mates

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Is that happening automatically though? Or does it need to be chased up with them? Folk will have already had to chase up on the missing flights/Tier Credits in the first place, so the automation in the system has already failed!

Either way it doesn’t instill a whole lot of confidence in their ability to manage/run their system without flaws.

I don't know if it now happens automatically or not, all I know is that I was wasting a lot of time trying to keep track of them. It was very time consuming and difficult because there seemed to be no pattern other than most of the missing points were from return sectors. It was further complicated by the random order the missing flights were credited because emails went unanswered for months (if answered at all) and I'd only see my tier credits had been awarded by checking my Avio points.
I decided to make a clean break after the membership anniversary date when they reset them to zero. I suggested at the time that time that nobody's points should be reset until all outstanding queries had been resolved.
Since then Ive taken a few leisure trips with EI but I haven't checked to see if I'd been awarded the points because it's not going to make any difference from now on.
In the meantime I've taken over forty flights with the Miles and More FFS and I never had to chase a single one, that's how it should be.
If EI can't administer the Aerclub scheme properly they should just credit the points automatically for purchasing the ticket instead of waiting for the outstations to confirm whether or not you took the flight.
Or modify the scheme so that if you take the first leg, you automatically get credited the points for both legs...

galvo_clare

galvo_clare wrote: »

Well, I'd have to drive to Dublin first to fly to Kerry. Shannon is on my doorstep but I don't fancy a surplus trip to London just to get points.
I was onto them the other week and they sent me their record of my Tier points - you can get the Avios details on the website but not Tier for some reason.
Anyway, after careful scrutiny I seem to have found a flight they missed out of Nice in June. I've claimed for it and if all goes well, that'll get me over the magic 300 for another year at least. Fingers crossed.

Rang them there this afternoon. The flight I was missing and had requested credit for showed up on my Avios tally but my Tier points were still stuck on 297.5. They reckoned Tier points were applied a few days after Avios but he said he'd kick it upstairs.
Got my email just now confirming my silver status for this year with 312.5 points.
Just under the wire.

AndyBoBandy

Just received my renewal email,

Down to Platinum from Concierge, despite only earning about 450 tier credits this year.

Happy enough with that.

goingnowhere

Thats the flow, drop to the level below if points insufficient. Though you must have 4 flights with EI (kind of hard not to meet this)

barman linen

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

Just received my renewal email,

Down to Platinum from Concierge, despite only earning about 450 tier credits this year.

Happy enough with that.

Is this the first evidence of a 'soft landing' rather than status being awarded commensurate with Tier credits ?

billy few mates

barman linen wrote: »

Is this the first evidence of a 'soft landing' rather than status being awarded commensurate with Tier credits ?

I don't know how it's supposed to work but I was silver last year, this year I took nowhere near the same amount of flights so barely collected any points or tier credits so I was expecting to just drop out of the system at the end of this period but they recently sent me another Silver card and set of baggage tags saying I'm still silver for another year.
I currently have zero points and it's likely to stay that way so I don't know what that's about.

The_Wanderer

My renewal date for Silver was the 28th November and my final batch of flights to get me over the 301 mark was taken on the 22/11 outward and 26/11 inbound with a total of 325 tier credits.

The inbound flight hadn't credited by the 30th November and I was showing at Green level. Checked again today and I'm back up to Silver. I was half expecting having to go chasing them.

Qprmeath

I’ve just won 100000 AerClub points? Can anyone explainwhat that means in real terms?

AndyBoBandy

Qprmeath wrote: »

I’ve just won 100000 AerClub points? Can anyone explainwhat that means in real terms?

If you transfer them to BA, you can get 400 packets of dried apricots.

On Aer Lingus, they’ll probably make a €150 return trip to Amsterdam cost €170

blackwhite

Qprmeath wrote: »

I’ve just won 100000 AerClub points? Can anyone explainwhat that means in real terms?

Upgrade to business class on an East Coast US flight costs 37,000 one way - but not available for every flight.

You’d be able to do a return trip on an economy fare, and use the points to try and upgrade.


Alternatively - one way to LHR usually costs 8,000 points

revelman

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

If you transfer them to BA, you can get 400 packets of dried apricots.

On Aer Lingus, they’ll probably make a €150 return trip to Amsterdam cost €170

To be fair, if you book well enough ahead in advance you can get some good deals. Just a few weeks ago, the other half and I got some fantastic aer lingus flights on our avios for a 2019 bank holiday weekend. We saved hundreds of euro on the cost price (and you get bags included on the avios booking). Granted, not every flight you want will be available and the flights would probably have to be expensive to begin with to get any value, but we were pleasantly surprised by the deal we got.

Qprmeath

revelman wrote: »

To be fair, if you book well enough ahead in advance you can get some good deals. Just a few weeks ago, the other half and I got some fantastic aer lingus flights on our avios for a 2019 bank holiday weekend. We saved hundreds of euro on the cost price (and you get bags included on the avios booking). Granted, not every flight you want will be available and the flights would probably have to be expensive to begin with to get any value, but we were pleasantly surprised by the deal we got.

Will I have to use them by a certain date? My AerClub.start date is 26th January

revelman

Qprmeath wrote: »

Will I have to use them by a certain date? My AerClub.start date is 26th January

Unless there is something hidden away in the terms and conditions I don't think there is a time limit on avios points (unlike tier credits). At least there hasn't been for me!

VG31

You just have to make at least one avios transaction every 36 months.

L1011

Supervalu only doing 1=1 currently on conversions but does have a flight competition so there may be value in doing a small conversion and holding on to the rest to see if they do a 1=3 or 1=2 again next year

SB Morer

That doens't look likely. They went from 1:3, to 1:2 to 1.5:1 during the last three periods when they issue vouchers. Now a measly opportunity to win a few economy flights. If we lived in the UK we could get 600 Avios for 250 Tesco Clubcard Points. It's disgraceful really that Irish customers get such a poor rate collecting Avios, especially as we can't avail of any proper Credit Card earnings - besides the super measly BoI/SuperValu deal of 1 point per €10 spent!

SB Morer

Qprmeath wrote: »

I’ve just won 100000 AerClub points? Can anyone explainwhat that means in real terms?

Can I ask how/where you won 100,000 AerClub Avios?

Qprmeath

SB Morer wrote: »

Can I ask how/where you won 100,000 AerClub Avios?

Work(airport). Still not sure whether it’s a decent prize or not. Haven’t actually got them on my account yet.

VG31

Qprmeath wrote: »

Work(airport). Still not sure whether it’s a decent prize or not. Haven’t actually got them on my account yet.

That's definitely a decent prize. Here are some random examples for what you can do with your points (all one-way, off-peak, not including taxes/charges):

Dublin to London economy: 4,00 avios (EI/BA)
Dublin to London business: 7,750 avios (BA)
Dublin to Rome economy: 8,500 avios (EI)
Dublin to Philadelphia economy: 20,000 avios (American Airlines)
Aer Lingus business class upgrade: 37,000 avios
Dublin to San Francisco economy: 16,250 avios (EI)
Dublin to San Francisco economy: 20,250 avios (BA)
Dublin to San Francisco business: 70,250 avios (BA)

SB Morer

Qprmeath wrote: »

Work(airport). Still not sure whether it’s a decent prize or not. Haven’t actually got them on my account yet.

Yes it's definitely a decent prize. Unless you're a frequent flyer it would take an Irish person many months of online shopping or whatever to rack up 100,000 Avios. The One Mile At A Time blog values them at 1.3 US cents each so that's about €1,140.

You can open a BA Executive Club account, or an Iberia Plus account if you want to spend them on One World airlines. Or just use Avios.com to spend them on Aer Lingus/BA/Iberia

vectorvictor

Qprmeath wrote: »

Work(airport). Still not sure whether it’s a decent prize or not. Haven’t actually got them on my account yet.

Hotels and experience are another way of spending. Some great days out and hotels on offer. The value isn't great but it's one of the few ways of spending avios without having to throw cash on top

howardmarks

A stupid question probably. If you're silver status with AerLingus and take a flight with say Ryanair can u still use say fast track etc? I'm guessing the answer is no