It is common every year for several airlines offer good deals in business class from the US to Europe during the Thanksgiving holidays due to minimum business travel during this time. Having relocated to the US, this would be my first time taking advantage of this deal.
Dublin being one of the two cheaper options with ~$2000 roundtrip tickets in business class from Austin on a combination of United and Lufthansa. The flight routing rules seem to be pretty flexible and allowed for backtracking to the west coast. Yes, it was crazy to flight back west ward but hey, more miles are always good and would help in my UA *G requalification.
I had researched flight options for a couple of weeks and was planning on flying Lufthansa via Frankfurt on the 747-8 on the outbound and A380 from the inbound but did not pull the trigger as I was not sure if I could actually make the trip due to work commitments. The fare was non-refundable and there was a nasty change fee so I had to be 100% sure.
When I did finally wanted to make the purchase, there was no longer availability on the 747-8 flight in the required fare class for my ticket. Dang! They did open up some more seats later but I couldn't change to it unless I wanted to pay the change fee. We'll wait for another time to try the 747-8.
Due to work commitments again, I couldn't take extra days off and have the entire week off. At the end, I settled for a routing AUS-SFO-IAD leaving right after work on Wednesday with a day to explore Washington D.C. before continuing on United and Lufthansa to Brussels and Frankfurt/Dublin respectively. On the trip home, I manage to tagged on a IAH-LAX flight to try the 787 before turning right back to AUS to get me home late on a Sunday just in time for work on Monday.
I waited until pretty late to pull the trigger on the hotels and got lucky thanks for the Hilton sale with close to 40% discount. We opted to stay one night at the Conrad in the city center and another at the Hilton Dublin airport since it was not only way cheaper but we had super early 5.30am flight and I needed the extra stay to try to quality for Hilton Honors Diamond.
Dublin being one of the two cheaper options with ~$2000 roundtrip tickets in business class from Austin on a combination of United and Lufthansa. The flight routing rules seem to be pretty flexible and allowed for backtracking to the west coast. Yes, it was crazy to flight back west ward but hey, more miles are always good and would help in my UA *G requalification.
I had researched flight options for a couple of weeks and was planning on flying Lufthansa via Frankfurt on the 747-8 on the outbound and A380 from the inbound but did not pull the trigger as I was not sure if I could actually make the trip due to work commitments. The fare was non-refundable and there was a nasty change fee so I had to be 100% sure.
When I did finally wanted to make the purchase, there was no longer availability on the 747-8 flight in the required fare class for my ticket. Dang! They did open up some more seats later but I couldn't change to it unless I wanted to pay the change fee. We'll wait for another time to try the 747-8.
Due to work commitments again, I couldn't take extra days off and have the entire week off. At the end, I settled for a routing AUS-SFO-IAD leaving right after work on Wednesday with a day to explore Washington D.C. before continuing on United and Lufthansa to Brussels and Frankfurt/Dublin respectively. On the trip home, I manage to tagged on a IAH-LAX flight to try the 787 before turning right back to AUS to get me home late on a Sunday just in time for work on Monday.
I waited until pretty late to pull the trigger on the hotels and got lucky thanks for the Hilton sale with close to 40% discount. We opted to stay one night at the Conrad in the city center and another at the Hilton Dublin airport since it was not only way cheaper but we had super early 5.30am flight and I needed the extra stay to try to quality for Hilton Honors Diamond.
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