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Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: The planning & changes – Part 1
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: Outbound from South Bend – Part 2
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: The Westin Chicago & UBER Black & SUV – Part 3
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: Outbound from Chicago & United Global 1st lounge Chicago O’Hare International Airport – Part 4
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: The brand new and amazing Boeing 747-8 & 1st class seating & experience – Part 5
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: The 1st class terminal in Frankfurt – Part 6
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: A Porsche ride & domestic business class – Part 7
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: Outbound from Gothenburg Sweden & business class to Munich Germany- Part 8
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: A Mercedes ride and the 1st class lounge in Munich – Part 9
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: The Airbus A330 & 1st class experience – Part 10
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: An overnight in Toronto Canada at the SPG Four Points by Sheraton – Part 11
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: The Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge- Part 12
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: United business class back to Chicago & South Bend Indiana – Part 13
Lufthansa 1st class to Sweden: Final thoughts & Delta comparison – Part 14

The way to start a flight!

As I return home today, this past trip was an adventure I was really looking forward to. I mean, Delta has a fine & comfortable quality business class product that is consistently good and service is tops but it is NOTHING like the new Lufthansa 1st class hard product. I booked this with United miles that I accumulated from credit card bonus deals and some transfer deals long gone. These points had been sitting for a while but I jumped on the chance to book these 135k plus a few bucks tax each seats pre-devaluation by United so got great value.

This was a “learning booking” and adventure for me. Learning because I got my points out just in time before they became worth much less than when I earned them long ago. Points are not fine wine and should be consumed “young” shall we say. Holding too many points is not always a good thing.

Booking was somewhat painful calling United with NO status (rep roulette is always fun). My last Lufthansa 1st class trip was 2 years ago when I burned up my ¼ million United points from my account (these latest were from Lisa’s). At the time I had status matched with Continental right after the merger so it was much simpler as a Platinum to get free changes. Not so much this time, but as I talked about in this post about fees I used many Delta tricks to save myself some money. I was able to book coach from South Bend, business Chicago to Toronto on United, Lufthansa 1st to Munich and then coach Lufthansa to Gothenburg & the same the other way home. Not ideal but the rep “said” I could change free to business on the MUC-GOT legs if space opened up. I thought this did not sound right, but took notes including the “helpful” rep’s name (tip)!

I kept checking for low level business seats to and from MUC-GOT and in just a few days the outbound opened up. Called United and they wanted to charge a change fee. I then pointed out I was in 1st class and rep “name” said it would be free and just booked a few days back. The change was made free. Months later the return opened up and mentioned rep 1, change 2 that was also free & why would this one be any different. Change again was made for free. Are we learning we should never pay change fees?

So I had my perfect flights. They were all business or 1st class other than the fact I would not get to visit the outstanding Frankfurt 1st class terminal again – truly a great disappointment. I had really wanted to spend most of a day there if I ever could again. Stay tuned for what happened to allow just that to happen in part 2 of this adventure. – René

Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer.