Ireland and a Wee Bit O’ Scotland

Ireland and a Wee Bit O’ ScotlandLast year I convinced four people in my family to sign up for the British Airways Visa card. My family, while they would love business or first, prefer two trips instead of one, so we usually look for economy tickets. After a lot of research, I settled on Aer Lingus as the most cost effective way to get over there. After realizing the flight from Boston to Dublin was going to be 25,000 miles after the British Airways Executive Club changes in November 2011, we knew that we could take all 10 of us on the trip.

We booked the tickets in January. It took about two hours on the phone with the agent as we had three accounts to deal with and two sets of dates. My sister in Memphis could only go for one week, so she was flying into Shannon and overnighting in Boston on the way back. We were able to get JAX-ATL-BOS for $190 all-in and BOS-MEM for $450 + $99 companion ticket on Delta. Of course my Dad then says, “I don’t know why we are going all that way to Ireland without going over to Scotland, it is so close,” so we added DUB-EDI for about $125 per person. Just an aside that the “it’s so close” comment is usually uttered by someone in my family on every trip, it just happened to be my Dad on this trip. The trip included my parents, my sister in Jacksonville with her husband and three kids (aged 14, 12 and 9), my sister in Memphis and her husband for one week and, of course, me!

Our flight to Boston was uneventful and the Aer Lingus flight to Dublin was fine, although it was only five hours long. I don’t want to be on a plane longer, but after they served dinner and dimmed the lights, there was only about 1 1/2 hours left for sleep. The flight from Dublin to Edinburgh was on a small plane and didn’t take long. We arrived in Edinburgh and stayed three days there, followed by one day in Belfast, a day in Letterkenney, two days in Sligo, two days in Galway, two days in Cork and three days in Dublin.

Name:
Kathy
[KathinJax on Milepoint]

FFP miles spent:
250,000 Avios

Hotel points spent:
165,000 Priority Club points + $600, 100,000 Club Carlson points + $1,010, 200,000 Choice Privileges

Approximate fees:
$1,440

Airline(s) / Routing:
JAX-ATL-BOS-DUB-EDI and DUB-BOS-ATL-JAX

How booked:
Over the phone

Type of award(s):
Coach award flights

Hotel(s):
Holiday Inn Express, Radisson Blu and Clarion

Month/year of trip:
June 2012