PACKAGE PRICES:YES, IRELAND is beautiful, but we do not usually consider our country to be a cheap destination. Right now, however, Aer Lingus's American Vacation Store, at www.aerlingus vacationstore.com or via www.aerlingus.com, is promoting extraordinary "summer vacation clearance" deals from the US.
Starting at $599 (€430), you can fly from Boston or New York to Shannon, and then back from Dublin, on a three-city package that includes six days’ use of an economy rental car with unlimited mileage and six nights’ hotel accommodation in Limerick, Mayo and Dublin.
It’s only marginally more expensive to fly from Washington DC and Chicago. You have to wonder where the profit is in a deal like that.
It’s on offer along with a range of other amazing packages, including a week’s fly-drive from Boston or New York for $399 (€285).
But how about Aer Lingus deals from here to the other side of the Atlantic during those same summer months?
That’s a different story. No matter how inventive you are on the website, the deals from Ireland all seem to refer to dates after September 1st. And Aer Lingus flights from Ireland to the US over the summer are nothing as cheap as those from the US, even though passengers are on the same flights.
On the website I picked a random day, July 12th, that was still available as a return date from Dublin to Boston on the €430 six-night, three-city package with accommodation and car. Price of a one-way flight from Dublin to Boston that day, on the same flight as the returning US-resident tourists? It was €349, excluding taxes of €54.
You, too, can drive yourself crazy by experimenting on the website and seeing how much better value it is to get here and back from the US – but not the other way around. Why, Aer Lingus, why?
