As many of you may know, I don’t fly United Airlines or Star Alliance partners all that often. Instead, I stick to American Airlines and the OneWorld Alliance. Because I rarely fly United, I have a fairly difficult time earning United MileagePlus miles. Sure, I’m earning plenty of American AAdvantage miles so don’t feel too bad for me, but I often find myself yearning to fly with Star Alliance carriers. Just think, Star Alliance is home to Lufthansa, Swiss, Singapore Airlines, ANA, EVA Air, and United which offer some of the best Business and First Class products around the world.
In the past I’ve earned most of my United MileagePlus miles through my Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred, and United MileagePlus cards all issued by Chase. Through these large sign-up bonuses and some spending on the cards, I’ve been lucky enough to fly Lufthansa First Class and Singapore Airlines Suites class on a few different occasions. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t take any of those experiences back, but after finding what I’ve just noticed, I will be smarter next time.
Lufthansa First Class From Asia To North America
In the past I’ve booked Lufthansa First Class for 110,000 miles and about $150 to fly between North America and Europe. At the time that was about as far as I was interested in flying, so it seemed like a great deal. However, through some recent searches I’ve discovered that I could have done a lot better. I learned this painful truth when searching for award travel between Hong Kong and New York.
Yes, you’re reading that correctly, for just 30,000 more miles I could have flown a lot further.
That’s a pretty incredible bargain when you look at the flight times of the above itinerary. In the past I’ve paid 110,000 miles to fly about 8 hours in Lufthansa First Class. However, had I instead looked at flights to Asia I could have gotten an additional 12 hours of first class flying for just 30,000 more MileagePlus miles!
What I especially love about the above itinerary is that it featured a stop in Frankfurt to fully enjoy the Lufthansa First Class terminal. Yes, that’s the airport ‘lounge’ with the bathtubs.
Oh, and yes, that’s the ‘lounge’ in which the ground staff drives you to your connecting flight in a Porsche!
Trust me, if you used 140,000 United Miles for two Lufthansa First Class flights you would not be disappointed.
My Strategy Going Forward
The only issue with booking Lufthansa First Class with United miles is that space isn’t available until 14 days prior to departure. Also, there aren’t any guarantees that you’re gong to find any availability. From my experience, I’ve almost always been able to find space on Lufthansa First a day or two prior to departure. However, I’m often not that willing to wait until the absolute last minute. Likewise, if space doesn’t open up you could be forced to pay a lot of cash for an economy ticket on short notice.
Thankfully, I think I have a solid strategy going forward. The only reason this is possible is because I maintain Executive Platinum status with American Airlines. Thanks to my status, I can cancel an award ticket prior to my departure date and have the miles redeposited at no cost.
So, going forward I’m going to book a flight with American Miles. Then, beginning 14 days prior to departure I’m going to start searching for Lufthansa Award space. If space opens I’ll book the ticket and cancel my American award flight. If not, I’ll just take the original award flight as planned.
Keep in mind, even if you don’t have status you could still do this. The only issue is, you will most likely be forced to pay an award redeposit fee. It could be worth it in some cases, but I’d never recommend spending money for no reason.
Final Thoughts
The deeper I explore the world of points and miles the more conflicted I get. When I first started taking award trips I thought 110,000 miles for 8 hours of Lufthansa First Class was a great deal. However, I’ve since learned that for just 30,000 more miles, I could more than double the time in the air!
Likewise, this isn’t even the best way to book Lufthansa First Class… There are even more effective ways of booking premium cabins with partner airlines. For example, I could save points by booking Lufthansa First with Avianca LifeMiles among others. I won’t begin to get into that right now.
Bottom line, the more I learn about miles and points the worse I feel for the average consumer. Sure, loyalty programs are setup to award ‘free’ travel for loyalty. However, they are also setup in a way that the average person can’t win. Only if you spend countless hours learning the ins and outs of a program do you even stand a chance.
So, my advice to everyone is to do some research before booking an award flight. Likewise, try to understand the complexities of your airline of choice’s alliance. Just because you’re earning United miles doesn’t mean you have to use those miles on United. By spending a little bit of time learning you can do a much better job of spending those hard earned miles.
