LAX-MUC Christmas nonstop

[zceuxbhjutf]

I know MS but almost nothing about optimizing award bookings.

I have United miles and wanna book two economy award tickets on probably one of the toughest routes. Home is LAX, family to visit during Christmas is MUC, so gotta get there and back. Last time we paid ~3k for the two roundtrips.

united.com shows the Lufthansa nonstop with quite a bit of availability in March and April, and I see some availability in November. But if I click the dates around Christmas, the nonstop doesn't show up.

Is this one where you'd have to book it the very first day the booking is available?
What's the best way to see nonstop availability (if there's a trick)?
Would a non-united website show award availability?

Thanks!

 

[italdesign]

I see lots of availability with one stop (FRA/ZRH) a few days before Xmas.

[edit] As someone who booked saver awards to SE Asia and Australia the last few Xmases, my strategy is to take anything semi-decent and be flexible. It likely won't be the ideal routing/schedule, but you take what you can get during the peakest of peak season. Unless you really have to be on the direct flight, I'd go with a one stopper.

 

[dukerau]

It's surprising that LAX-FRA availability is so open in late December yet LAX-MUC is nowhere to be found. Note that LAX-MUC operates daily until 12/22 then only M-Th (so no flights on 12/23 or 12/24). And MUC-LAX operates daily through 12/22 then only S, W, Th.

If a connection with a short hop (i.e., LAX-FRA-MUC) is unacceptable, do you have Amex Business Platinum and a bunch of Amex MR? If you do and you have United selected as your airline benefit choice, you can book a United codeshare of the Lufthansa non-stop round trip for ~150k MR, of which 50% will be refunded. For example, for 12/21-12/27, LH charges $1,442. Amex has United's codeshare for $1,492. So the cost would be 149,196 MR per person, and you get half back. So essentially 75k MR per person. Considering there are no award taxes and fees and it's a mileage earning flight, it's arguably a better deal than economy award flights anyway.

 

[zceuxbhjutf]

Great tips on the one-stop, thanks, but this is a situation where if the nonstop (United miles) award is unavailable but a nonstop can be bought no matter the price, then buy it is.

My googling is a bit inconclusive re if some award seats are released quite a bit AFTER the schedule is released. If not, the award ship has likely sailed for Christmas 2017. Here's some of what google found...

OMAAT in 2014 said Lufthansa awards first appear 359 days out whereas United's are 338. If that's the case then the popular dates near Christmas would probably all be grabbed by folks with Lufthansa miles, not United miles. Not good.
onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/03/21/when-do-airlines-open-award-seats/

There's an FT post that says 331 days.
flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/1546397-booking-award-more-than-330-days-out.html

Another FT post...
flyertalk.com/forum/27317113-post14.html
...implies that one should check every day, although it leaves out the complexity I have of United miles but Lufthansa flight. "Sometimes UA releases award seats when the schedule opens at 330 days. More often it does not."

 

[dukerau]

Just FYI in case it wasn't clear - my post above was solely about non-stops.

LH (Miles & More) releases more award availability to their own members than they do to partners. I did a search and 12/17-12/20 all have availability for 2 passengers (didn't check more) LAX-MUC non-stop. On the inbound, 12/27 and 12/28 are both available for 2 passengers as well MUC-LAX non-stop. Even if you had 120k LH miles, they charge $382 in taxes, fees, and fuel surcharges per person, so it's not an attractive use of LH miles. I don't know at what point LH releases those seats to partners, though.