Originally Posted by
MatthewLAX
It's too bad you're flying United First, but when it's 80K vs. 110K (Lufthansa on the same route), I don't blame you. If you do have the extra 30K miles x 2 and you don't mind splurging, I would move to Lufthansa on the way back for a true first class experience (keep UA business on the way out). Once you experience the First Class Terminal and LH onboard service, you'll thank me.
I wouldn't worry about a downgrade and I think 1A and 2A are good choices, but it certainly will be much easier to communicate if your companion was in 1C.
Enjoy it. Hopefully you get a nice crew.
Yeah, flying UA is just how the cards fell. We each got he 50k MileagePlus card last year and then we topped off with UR. My initial plan was to fly UA to Germany and LH back... and that's when I discovered the frustration of phantom awards. UA's website was showing both LH Economy Saver and Business Saver but the "friendly" support agents told me there were absolutely no LH award flights available for the dates I was looking. A few days later, I signed up with ANA to use their Star Alliance award search and didn't find anything available on there. It would have been ideal but I'll settle for UA, especially since we're about all tapped out on points/miles.
Thanks for your feedback!