I considered the DXB idea but we only have about 12 days for this trip, so I think we're going to focus on Egypt. My wife and I also want to do a Middle East trip in the future where we'll hit a few other countries.

Part of the challenge was that I also had an expiring voucher on UA for about $700, plus I have two SWU's left and this is my last TATL trip for the year. So in order to utilize all of that, we decided to route through FRA.

I bought a paid W fare to FRA and then used a 55k Europe-Middle East award onward. In addition to a second U.S. - Middle East award for 115k following the exact itin. (I checked paid fares to DXB and KWI - they were very high, over double the $795 R/T fare to FRA.)

The trade-off is that I give up flexibility on the itin from here to FRA. It would have been nice to be able to watch for a last-minute Starnet un-block and jump on LH metal across the pond. But I can live with that in order to use the voucher and SWU's.

The more we've talked, the more we agree that we are definitely going down to Abu Simbel. From what I understand, that's pretty easy/affordable from LXR.