Looking to fly Dec. 10 – Jan 4, 2011 from LAX to Nuernberg, Germany (i.e. LAX - Frankfurt, Munich or Berlin, nonstop) in Business Class.

In the past, we’ve been able to buy a Lufthansa H-fare economy ticket ($1200-$1500) with and use 60000 United Mileage Plus miles for the roundtrip upgrade. We’d like to find something close to that (price, as direct as possible). We both have around 120K United Mileage Plus miles each.
(United’ Mileage Plus changed this last year, now you can only book Y or B fares on Lufthansa to get an upgrade. On United, upgrades are either not available on the dates/routes I’m looking at and they are only letting you use 20K miles and then charging a large upcharge on top of the fare).

I know we’ll have to switch to LH Miles and More program credit card and Mileage Program to be able to get the upgrade on LH on an H-fare in the future. In the meantime:

- any suggestions on the cheapest, most direct way from LAX to Nuernberg (i.e. via Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin) using the United Mileage Plus Miles for the business class upgrade or a business class ticket?
- Which Lufthansa Miles and More linked credit card has the best promotion for signing up with them?

Thanks in advance.