Aer Lingus announced new service to Los Angeles starting in May 2016 earlier this week and award space has now been loaded — but don’t be fooled by united.com, which is showing a lot of business class space that is not bookable.
Login to united.com right now and you will see a ton of business class award space on the new Dublin/LA route —
You can even book it and get a confirmation, but if you pull up your itinerary after booking you will find the following error message —
United warns when booking Aer Lingus that the carrier may take up to 24 hours to confirm space and the reservation will not ticket, so it is not likely you can use the technical glitch to get United to open up saver award space on its own metal.
I was suspicious from the start because Expert Flyer did not show the space we see on united.com nor could British Airways, another mileage partner of Aer Lingus, book it.
The good news is there are four economy class seats on almost every flight, which may still be a good value if you don’t mind flying in economy class and is a great way to fly to/from the west coast without fuel surcharges using British Airways Avios.
Here’s the bright side to this — the “phantom” space currently on united.com may be an indicator of what is to come, so keep an eye on space and we will see if Aer Lingus does end up releasing business class awards on the new route at a later date.
Keep in mind the following miles are required for round-trip travel from Los Angeles to Dublin on Aer Lingus:
- Business Class
- 75K British Airways Avios
- 70K United MileagePlus miles (includes connection to anywhere in Europe and a stopover on r/t travel)
- Economy class
- 25K British Airways Avios
- 30K United MileagePlus miles (includes connection to anywhere in Europe and a stopover on r/t travel)
Thanks for the heads up. How did you access the old United website?
Tom, use ual.com in a private browser — I hate the new website.
Ah, excellent – didn’t know that was possible. Hate the new website too. Thanks!
Just a quick update: per FlyerTalk and my own attempts, it looks like UA shut off the old site yesterday… sad news.
Yes, I noticed that too. Post is coming.
From my experience, there is still phantom space. Why would United want this to continually occur? More importantly, with your law background can you think of any legal ramifications such as a company offering something a company knows is not sellable? Even car dealerships have to specify in ads, “1 available at this price.”