I previously wrote about how I made travel plans for my wife and younger daughter for their upcoming women’s group trip to Poland. For the outbound portion of their trip, I booked them from Washington to Berlin via Munich in Lufthansa Business Class using 70,000 Air Canada Aeroplan miles per person.

I knew that there was a slight possibility that Lufthansa would release First Class seats within the final 48 hours before their trip, but it was doubtful that their flight would have seats available as Lufthansa has been getting more and more stingy with these seats being released to partners. Some weeks they only release space from Germany and some weeks there’s a seat or two on a few flights from the US.

I didn’t even tell them that this was a possibility as I didn’t want them to get their hopes up. As things stood yesterday afternoon, they were leaving Washington Dulles in Lufthansa Business Class on Saturday around 10pm, connecting in Munich with about a four hour layover and continuing to Berlin to start their trip with a couple of days there before continuing on to Poland to meet the group for their tour.

Yesterday evening, I checked the Seats.aero Lufthansa First Class finder. It’s a special link that gathers all the Lufthansa First Class space that is showing available through partners United and Aeroplan. Note that you can also sometimes find space using Avianca LifeMiles but the award has been devalued recently and Aeroplan is now the best value at 100k.

I saw that there was first class space on the Lufthansa flight from Dulles to Frankfurt, but not Munich. I actually was hoping to switch them to the Frankfurt flight for a couple of reasons. 1) It leaves at 6:10pm which gives them time to enjoy dinner on board before they are too tired. 2) They could get to Berlin earlier in the day on Sunday. I tried to change their flights online, but kept running into issues with the Frankfurt-Berlin leg as there wasn’t any business class space available on that flight. I could see economy class was bookable separately, but not in combination with the first class flight from Washington to Frankfurt.

I decided to call Aeroplan. I entered my info into their automated system and opted for a call back rather than waiting on hold. My first pleasant surprise was that it only took 15 minutes to get a call back from the contact center which was a major improvement over the last time I had to call them. I then spoke with a super helpful rep who immediately understood what I was trying to do. She put me on hold for a bit and managed to get them on the Frankfurt flight with a business class connection to Berlin. There was about $25 in additional fees per person which I assume is related to higher passenger fees through Frankfurt compared to Munich. She didn’t (or forgot to) charge me the change fee which is supposed to be CAD$100 per person. They also deducted the additional 30k miles per person from my account.

Remember that sometimes it pays to call in when you can’t make changes online. Some programs can find award space that you can’t see online. The whole thing took me about a half-hour to get sorted out and now they are set for Lufthansa First Class. My wife has flown it a couple of times with me, but this will be our daughter’s first time in international first class.

The only minor negative is that they have a seven hour layover in Frankfurt and only get to Berlin an hour earlier than on the previous itinerary as none of the earlier Frankfurt-Berlin flights were available through Aeroplan. However, we can spin that as a positive because they can now visit the First Class Terminal in Frankfurt and enjoy the nap rooms, luxury showers/bathtubs, sit-down restaurant and fantastic bar. Then they will get driven to their connecting flight in a Porsche or Mercedes. Can you tell I’m almost as excited about this as they are?

I had to pay a little bit to switch my wife’s flight from Atlanta to Washington to an earlier flight to Dulles instead of Reagan (where she was originally going to just meet our daughter in DC and then hang out for a few hours before the late night flight). Now, they will meet at Dulles and perhaps visit the United Polaris Lounge before heading to the Lufthansa Senator Lounge where they can board their flight directly from the lounge and sit in the nose of the 747-8i.

While the overall tone of their trip will be somber and reflective based on where they are going in Poland, at least they will get to start off in style and luxury. After all, I shouldn’t really be the only one enjoying champagne and caviar this week when I jet off on my YOLO solo trip.

If you have questions about this post, let me know in the comments or send me an email at emptynestermiles@gmail.com. If you are thinking about opening a new credit card, please use one of my links.