Originally Posted by
PVDProf
On the outbound, of the choices you present, I'd do a 767, which has slightly wider C suites. MUC has a longer flight, so that's a clear choice. (The question is, given that you're paying, why fly to ORD to catch UA when you could be in international C for longer (if you did SFO-FRA, for instance), or took a foreign carrier. I'd even look at AC, for example. (Note LH only has their true lie-flat on a few planes.)
Thanks, I believe the scheduling is not good for me (too late), but point well-taken. I've taken the LH flight from ORD-FRA before, it is fair but adequate for me for sleep.
Originally Posted by
PVDProf
On the return, 901 has a reputation of being a VERY tough upgrade. I can't get a sense of relative odds on the others, but I'm 100% FRA-IAD. FRA-IAH is a pmCO 764, not a 744; I don't know that equipment specifically, but pmCO J is fine. You might check on the same-day upgrade rates on LH's FRA-IAH, on the A380, which you can get with a paper GPU. It's not lie-flat, but for a day flight, it's new equipment and decent service.
That is very good to know. I am 6 months out now but it sounds like it could be chancy via SFO. This is a bit surprising because seatguru.com shows this bird to have 52 business class seats. I now see that the FRA-IAH flight on UA metal has seats that are not lie-flat, so let's leave that one out.
I may end up going with SFO since:
1. there are more C seats for upgrade possibilities
2. The flight schedule/connections are good
3. I hate to fly a short TATL to IAD then a long TC to LAX afterwords
4. I am 6 months out, so maybe my chance of a GPU is not so bad?
Thanks again!