I’ll admit it here – ever since United announced its huge devaluation in partner awards, I’ve been thinking about creating a reason to fly to Europe so I could sample Lufthansa’s First Class services one more time. My experience last year was great, but I missed sampling their new First product after changing flight plans to fly home via Frankfurt instead of Munich. Ever since, I’ve been thinking about when we would return to Europe so I could ensure I tried the new product.

And then the big news came out. What I paid 135K per person for last year would soon set me back 220K per person, an amount I could put together if I tried, but a depressing thought nonetheless. I started thinking about long weekends in Europe, and finding the most likely F award availability on the return so I could try the famous Lufthansa ground services once again. Lucky’s revelation on amazing award availability on two new North American routes wetted my appetite even further. And then, reality set in.

Fact – my time off is limited and our annual big vacations (big = 2 weeks) are booked for not only this year, but 2014 as well. Not only that, devalued or not, I have never failed at using my miles the way I wanted to use them to suit my needs. I am comfortable with the likelihood that sometime in the next year or so, an opportunity will present itself to use the miles I would have frivolously spent just for the sake of writing one or two blog posts that will not only save me an respectable amount of money, but probably generate a couple of blog posts too.

To all those who benefited from the amazing award availability discovered yesterday, or who have been successful in booking some other partner award with your United miles before the big devaluation, I’m happy for you, really. And who knows….maybe MrsMJ and I will find a reason to fly to Europe for a long weekend sooner than I think. đŸ™‚

-MJ, November 8, 2013