American Airlines and Aer Lingus have taken another step toward tightening their transatlantic relationship, with good news for AAdvantage members.

American Airlines Expands Aer Lingus Partnership With Full Loyalty Integration, Award Redemptions

American Airlines has completed the long-anticipated integration of Aer Lingus into its AAdvantage loyalty program, allowing online award bookings and offering reciprocal elite benefits between the two carriers.

This development has been a long time coming. Aer Lingus participates in the oneworld transatlantic joint venture alongside American, British Airways, Iberia, and Finnair, but key loyalty features have rolled out slowly since that partnership began in late 2020. First came codeshares in 2022. Reciprocal mileage earning was the next thing…that began in December 2023. Then came reciprocal elite benefits in late 2024. But still no reciprocal mileage redemptions…until now.

Oddly, there are still no plans for Aer Lingus to join the oneworld alliance.

AAdvantage Awards On Aer Lingus Are Now Bookable Online

AAdvantage members can now search and book Aer Lingus award space directly on aa.com. Unlike with Alaska Airlines, Aer Lingus award space prices the same as with other partners at “saver” levels. For example, a transatlantic flight is 30K miles in economy class and 57.5K in business class. Intra-Europe space is 12.5K miles each (which in most cases will not be a better deal than buying the ticket).

But the beauty of booking with AA is that you can tack on other flights, either on American Airlines’ own metal or on a partner and you are still charged the pricing based on origination and destination region. For example, you might find an itinerary from Helsinki – Dublin – Chicago – Dallas that includes segments on Finnair, Aer Lingus, and American and it will price the same as if you had bought Dublin – Chicago alone.

This is good news for AA flyers!

CONCLUSION

American Airlines has finally brought the Aer Lingus partnership to a place that feels complete for customers. Online award bookings and reciprocal elite recognition make the relationship far more usable in the real world. If you regularly travel to Ireland or connect onward from Dublin, this makes AAdvantage miles and status more valuable than before.

(But do be advised the lounge situation in Dublin right now is a bit of a mess)

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