Flying to Europe the long way


Every now and then an airline messes up the routing rules in their booking engines, resulting in some pretty impressive deals. I almost flew NYC to Europe via Hawaii both directions just to collect the huge number of miles associated with the trip. It looks like United may be suffering a similar fate right now, but in their Business class bookings, making the deals somewhat more attractive. They published sale fares of ~$2000 from the USA to Europe in Biz class for this summer. That alone is a pretty decent price. But it turns out that the flights can be routed through India or South Africa – all in Business class – for the same price. A well planned one of these from the West coast could net somewhere in the range of 50K miles for $2000 spent flying around in UA and Lufthansa Business class flights. Not too shabby. Sadly they don’t allow for staying in those far-flung cities as they are just connection points, but the deal is still pretty impressive.

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Seth Miller

I'm Seth, also known as the Wandering Aramean. I was bit by the travel bug 30 years ago and there's no sign of a cure. I fly ~200,000 miles annually; these are my stories. You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

One Comment

  1. Thank you for your blog (I learned about it from being a member of Flyertalk)… It is nice to read about other people’s travel experiences. I posted your Continental search on my blog. I am new to blogging, but I think it will be a nice experience.

    One question, how were you able to segment your header so that you were able to place your upcoming trips there? Thanks for your help.

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