Aer Lingus have received strong criticism from customers over the operation of their loyalty scheme.
The airline loyalty, AerClub, is in partnership with Northern Ireland. Members who sign up for it are able to earn Avios points for everyday spending on the card. These points can be redeemed for reward flights, as well as Aer Lingus passes and travel insurance.
However, some dissatisfied customers have claimed that it is "laughably difficult" to redeem the free flights that they are due after building up loyalty cards using an Aer Lingus Credit Card.
A number of customers claimed that this system is not working for them, according to The Irish Independent.
One source told the paper: “I earned the flights, but couldn’t book them due to the crazy booking process and then closed my account out of frustration. Asked them to honour the flights, but they wouldn’t oblige".
While another customer, who did not want to be named said: “It’s almost impossible to book these free flights given the way they have it set up". They then added that they realised there were only two seats per flight available for those using the loyalty scheme, which makes if tricky to secure a free booking.
“A free flight? Laughably difficult to book. You have to pick a flight. Tell them the flight number and time of flight – like they don’t know – submit a request and wait", another customer said. “Usually they come back within 48 hours saying ‘Computer says no’".
Replying to these complaints, a spokeswoman for Aer Lingus has said that the Aer Credit Card has offered customers two return flights to Europe, excluding fees, taxes and charges once they reach a spend threshold of €5,000 on their Aer Credit Card.
The spokeswoman for the airline said: “Cardholders also benefit from two fast-track and priority boarding passes, two Aer Lingus lounge passes, worldwide multi-trip travel insurance, and the ability to collect Avios, the reward currency of the AerClub loyalty programme, on everyday spending".
“Aer Lingus aims to accommodate customers’ preferred travel dates and destinations wherever possible, subject to availability".
She went on to say that each flight with Aer Lingus within Europe had a limited allocation of two seats for Aer Credit Card customers, and they would be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.
She said: “We have recently enhanced the flight-request process to make it more user-friendly and transparent, with improved customer communications regarding availability".
“More than 23,000 return flights have been booked by Aer Credit Card customers in the last 12 months to destinations across Europe" (quotes according to The Irish Independent).
It has been reported that Aer Lingus are to introduce more improvements to the booking process for the scheme over the next few weeks.
Bank of Ireland has said that each flight had a limited of seats of Aer Credit Card customers, and it had issued advice to customers on the best way to secure flights.
In other news, a passenger travelling on a Ryanair flight was nearly sucked out of a window while on board a plane to Germany. Find out more on this from Nova here.
