Bali and Berchtesgaden: Introduction

@ Andrew -- Between flying 200,000 revenue miles per year, credit cards, BankDirect, hotel stays, and taking advantage of every promotion I can, I earn well over a million miles a year. 🙂

@ Jason -- Yep!

I've been waiting to read this one...

How do you collect so many miles??? You must redeem at least 1 million a year. Credit card sign up bonuses don't rack up that much!

Agent roulette for LH F?

Krug over Dom? Come on Lucky;)

@ hsw -- Any and every day of the week. Always.

What happened to the last few segments of the prior trip report?

Holy Roulette Wheel Batman! LH F on a US Award! And here I was ready to believe the lengthy FT thread on the impossibility of such a thing! Stunning.

@ Cook -- I completed the previous trip report. See the introduction post for the trip report index:
https://onemileatatime.com/lucky-charms-ireland-introduction/

Hey Lucky,
Have you ever written about Bank Direct? Do you earn lots of miles from them?
stacey

@ Stacey -- I do, and you can read about it here: https://onemileatatime.com/bankdirect-1099/

HI LUCKY AND OTHERS......I WAS ABLE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SQ F AWARD MILES ON JULY 8TH.....HAS ANYONE HAD ANY PROBLEM AT CHECK-IN WITH THE ETICKET....LIKE DENIED BORDING OR DOWNGRADES??? THANKS J CURRIE

@Stacey,
Sadly there is now a $12 monthly fee for the Bank Direct account. However, if you're like
Lucky and have $50k+ in your account it makes sense.

okay, i am with stacey on this one ... i was wondering about BankDirect. i googled it and it seemed like there were a lot of products - CDs, money markets, checking.

any new thoughts on this one?

other than that, i am really excited about this trip report.

post away!!!

@ J CURRIE -- No one has reported having any issues. You're good to go.

routing domestically? did you fly UA again. want to know how that went.

@ anonymous -- I actually booked revenue tickets on US Airways and American, as I wasn't coming from Tampa and still needed to firm up my schedule. It ended up being cheaper than paying the change fee, plus I earned miles to boot.

@ rob -- I have a mileage checking account. You earn 100 miles per month for every $1,000 of the monthly average collected balance in your account. That means you earn 1,200 miles per year, and at 1.5 cents per mile (conservative valuation) that’s about a 1.8% return tax free, so to many that’s the equivalent of ~2.5% interest.

How did you get a stopover AND an open-jaw on a US award? The stopover looks legit (MUC and flew in on LH) ... did you just throwaway IAD-IAH?

@ AK -- US Airways isn't especially diligent about verifying routings. :p

Did you have any trouble getting US to find the LH O space? Were you able to cajole them out of the change fee?

@ Matthew -- Took some agent roulette. Surprisingly enough didn't charge me for change.

So does agent roulette = long sell ?

Since the whole flight was an F award, I'm assuming changing from LH J to LH F didn't cost more miles. Is there usually a change fee associated? Based on status?

@ Lee -- Yep.

@ discrep -- Yes, they usually charge $150 to "upgrade" to your paid cabin, though there's no difference in miles. For whatever reason the agent waived the change fee.

Any dates with Janesis coming up? 😉

How did you get the new LH 747-8 First Class award book on US... I've hear a lot of experience about problem redeeming US miles on LH/LX O Class. Is there any trick? On the other hand, it looks like you booked them about a month ago, did LH now releasing First Class award earlier than just a few days before departure? Thanks for sharing!

Sorry, please ignore my post, I started asking before finish reading...@@

I thought us air was charging 120k miles for first class to Asia... How did it end up being 160k for you?
What am I missing?

Lucky: It sounds like you got the US DM agent to do a 'long sell' to score LH F - good job!

Lantean: North Asia = 120K in F
S.E. Asia = 160K in F

@ Lantean -- Yep, as Mike S. said, North Asia is 120,000 miles, while SE Asia is 160,000 miles.

I'm debating on switching my Rez this Tuesday as I see LH F open. What's the best way to call DM to switch and have them do a "long sell" ?

I may have you start booking my award travel. I stink at it!

@ Arthur -- See comment 42 in this post:
https://onemileatatime.com/just-got-off-my-first-lufthansa-747-8-flight%E2%80%A6-wow/

Great! How successful to try for 3 LH F flights that show avail via ANA tool.....HKG-MUC, MUC-FRA, FRA-DFW .......?? I guess I need the right DM agent?

@greg I have learned and used SOOOOO much from @lucky.

@ Arthur -- If the space is actually there you shouldn't have any trouble if you give it a few tries.

How did you get US to book LH F? I tried 4 or 5 agents a few months ago, and they all said they couldn't see space, and flat out refused to long sell because they were forbidden by management. I ended up burning up the last of my Aeroplan miles (and paying the $300YQ).

Ah I read your post. That's what I read when I was trying to get it done. I spoke to an awful lot of agents and each of them flat out refused to manually request the space.

Off question. Arriving UA F passangers able To access the LH Welcome lounge in FRA?

Can someone explain how this routing worked? I am familiar with open jaws and stopovers, but I am seeing more than that here.

For instance, how does Lucky get the round trip part from SIN to Bali, as well as FRA-MUC?

Is the trip an open jaw IAD-DPS//DPS-IAH with stopover in SIN and in MUC? I am lost, since there are so many segments here. Help!

Seems like there are at least 2+ stopovers here...

@ Ced -- I had a stopover in Munich and my destination was Bali. I also had an open jaw between Houston and Washington, which isn't technically permitted.

@lucky, thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

So my understanding is:
Outbound: IAH-(DME)-SIN-DPS (0 stopover, just connections)
Inbound: DPS-SIN-FRA-MUC-FRA-IAD (1 stopover in Munich)

I had misunderstood that from FRA you had tackled an extra rountrip to MUC, but that's not the case, it's simply DPS-MUC+MUC-IAD, the FRA parts are just connections.

Am I right? Finally, your first FRA connection was overnight, with more than 12 hours between flights. Does this never count as a stopover?

Thanks a lot in advance, this is very enlightening!

@ Ced -- US Airways counts anything over 24 hours as a stopover, so you are correct. The only part of this that wasn't completely "legal" is that there was an open-jaw AND a stopover, as well as the roundtrip FRA-MUC-FRA (though with less than 24 hour connections in each direction).

Anyone know? Arriving UA F passangers able To access the LH Welcome lounge in FRA?

@ Arthur -- Nope, just for Lufthansa passengers unfortunately.

I'm curious. This is from LH Website- (2) The following passengers may also access the Lufthansa Welcome Lounge at Frankfurt Airport:
- Passengers of United Airlines (First and Business Class and Global Services cardholders) and Continental Airlines (Business Class) arriving in Frankfurt

- Passengers arriving in Frankfurt after a Lufthansa intercontinental flight (First and Business Class) via Dusseldorf or Munich

Hi,
Do you think that Singapore Airlines is the best option for reward travel from the U.S. to Bali? I'm new to the frequent flyer thing. My husband is Balinese, so we'd like to focus on earning trips to Bali to see his family. Unfortunately, we only have miles with Delta and Philippine Airlines (neither of which seems like a great option). Any insight or tips you could give us would be so appreciated!

@ Hannah -- Your best bet if originating in the US is Cathay Pacific, since they have one stop service out of all their North American gateways to Bali. You'd be best off accruing American miles to book Cathay Pacific.

Lucky, thanks for another great trip report! Do you have a preference for row 1 vs. row 2? Is there even a difference? Deciding for myself and my girlfriend on sq1 later this fall. Currently we're the only ones in the cabin so maybe we'll get to try out all the seats anyway, but I figured I would ask.

@ Matt -- Both are great and I don't have a strong preference for one over the other. I'd give a slight edge to row two because it's a bit more private, though.

I assume you weren't charged a change fee when you changed classes on the LH flight back to the states because you were ONLY changing classes and NOT dates? At least I assume that's what the US agent was thinking . . .

@ erndog -- Correct. In my experience I find they consistently charge the fee now even for "upgrades" to the paid cabin, so I think I lucked out here.

Which website/application do you use for the map route?

@ Fabio -- I use gcmap.com.

Did I miss a segment? Where is night of 07/30?

@ JohnBom -- I stayed at the Sheraton Frankfurt, though I skipped the review since since I've reviewed the hotel before and it would have literally been identical. You can find my previous review here:
https://onemileatatime.com/the-last-aeroplan-hurrah-sheraton-frankfurt-airport/