Mrs MJonTravel and I are heading to Italy next October to celebrate a certain major milestone of a birthday. Let’s call it her 29th birthday. We’ll be heading over in late October, spending a few days visiting Tuscany and then boarding the brand spanking new Celebrity Reflection for a 14 night repositioning cruise from Venice to Barcelona. I mentioned this on the blog recently.

In any event, as I was doing important work today, it donned on me to check and see if United had opened up award availability for the IAD to FCO nonstops next October. Sure enough, first class was available at the “saver” rate of 67,500 miles per person departing on her birthday. While Business is plenty acceptable for a flight to Europe, this is an important event and I wanted to travel in style.

I realize connecting in Frankfurt and visiting the Lufthansa First Class terminal would really be “in style,” but in this case, the ease of nonstop flight carries more weight for us. And all things being equal, one can do worse than United First Class….it could be United Coach. đŸ™‚ So I nabbed 3E and 3F on the Boeing 777 nonstop to Rome. I’m happy. I don’t have to worry about shopping for the return for several days as we won’t be departing Barcelona until November 16th. Hoping for good award availability karma! For now, I’m quite pleased to have First Class seats to Rome. Who says you can’t use miles?!