Splashy Awards
Sitting up front in premium cabins with lots of room, great food and service, and all the creature comforts that are possible in the sky is pretty cool. I come from modest surroundings and flying first class and staying in $1,000+ a night hotels rooms definitely wasn’t commonplace growing up. For some in the points and miles hobby, this way of travel seems to be significant, if not mandatory, but for me getting splashy with awards isn’t important. However it’s nice to be able to have that luxury, especially on international flights with significant time in the air.
Recently a miles issue surfaced. I had a little over 200,000 Lufthansa miles and roughly 60k worth were expiring in the spring. Since my Barclays Lufthansa card was shut down (along with my other Barclays rewards cards) a few weeks ago, I didn’t have a way to keep those miles from expiring. Lufthansa has an odd expiration policy. Even if you have the Barclays credit card, you need to make a purchase for 3 consecutive months (for any amount) in order to keep the miles from waving goodbye. Even then the miles are only safe for months, not years. Transferring points from SPG won’t save miles from expiring, nor will any shopping portals or other efforts, only flying with Lufthansa or using the credit card regularly.
$8,000 is the cash value for a one way Lufthansa Award ticket from Eastern Europe to the US. Instead of cash, I used 170,000 miles plus $560 in taxes and fees for 2 tickets. It will be my first Lufthansa first class experience.
I asked around a bit on Slack and to some friends of mine as to what I should do with my miles. Some of the regular questions were “how did you get so many Lufthansa miles” and also “why do you have so many Lufthansa miles”! The last question is hilarious. When I first started collecting Lufthansa miles, I was trying to save for a first class cabin sometime in the future. I got the Barclays card twice in a 4 year span, each with a 50k mile sign up bonus. The rest of the miles that I earned were almost all from credit card spend.
Some ideas of what to do with my Lufthansa miles included buying members of my family flights to Hawaii (on United metal), flying somewhere for around 60k miles and saving the rest, or taking a buddy of mine on a trip to Europe. In the end, I chose to take a buddy of mine to Europe on a trip. He’s been a good friend and has had some issues in his life of late that I thought would be good to take a break from. He traveled to Northern Italy around 10 years ago, but hadn’t been out of the country past that. During his trip to Italy he was very sick much of the time, and only traveled for several days, so it wasn’t terribly memorable.
Lufthansa award chart. There aren’t many sweet spots that stand out as great value with Lufthansa
Who, What, Where?
The question now was, where to go? I thought about South America, but ended up selecting Eastern Europe. I’ve been to around 30 countries in Europe, and most of those multiple times, but haven’t been to Ukraine or Belarus. So after taking with my buddy, we decided to tour those countries along with parts of Poland. Initially I thought a roundtrip business class ticket for each of us, using 105k +105k miles plus taxes and fees was the way to go. But after some consideration, I chose economy tickets there and first class on the way back. On the way there we are flying United and can utilize stopovers and open jaws to see more cities, and on the way back, the taxes and fees are less flying into the U.S vs. flying into Europe. Plus a first class passage back would allow both of us to experience the elite German airline all the way up front, in the first 2 seats of the plane.
Splashy award – all the way up front in first class Frankfurt to Chicago! (Image from Seat Guru)
Normally I’m big on getting the maximum value for my miles. I like being efficient and also knowing I got a nice return on my time and miles, but for this trip, I wasn’t really concerned with sweet spots or maximizing every mile that I could. Flying first class also gives us lounge access and a ride to the plane on the tarmac in a sweet German vehicle. I’m even looking forward to the Lufthansa pajamas, which I hear are some of the best in the airline industry.
Trip Costs
Each of us are paying our own taxes on the flight, or around $300 each roundtrip. My buddy has the Barclay Arrival Plus card so he’s using that to pay for his taxes and fees. Hotels will be paid for with various points, including a stay at the Fairmont in Kiev which is one of the best hotels in the city. I plan to use a mix of Airbnb and Club Carlson (Radisson Blu) points for the rest of ours stays so our costs for 2-3 weeks of travel will be very small. Belarus allows visitors from the U.S. a visa free stay if they fly into Minsk and stay 5 days or less which is what we plan to do. After that, our travel will be a couple short flights, trains and buses. I’ll use some bank bonus money and manufactured spend to hopefully have an entirely free trip.
Kiev Fairmont Hotel
Summary
Learning Russian will be a challenge, as they have the Cryllic alphabet, which looks very unusual to me. Hopefully I’ll have a good grasp of it over the next 4-5 months before we depart. Either way, the trip should be very interesting and hopefully really great. Points and miles are giving my buddy and I over $18,000 worth of value for a multi-week trip to Europe. Certainly we could have gone to Europe without these rewards, but we’re definitely saving money by using them and also traveling at a much higher level than we would otherwise do!
