We are going to Budapest early September to begin a river cruise, ending in Amsterdam. Flying out of either IAH or AUS. We live about halfway between them but AUS is SO much easier. Non stop AUS/FRA/AUS a few years ago was awesome! We are hoping for saver award business class, on any airline that will get us there, but, ideally, UA or LH. Right now there are no saver awards for a reasonable cost. Most flights are about 155k miles. Some are 250k for Saver. That's outrageous. Other days near our dates are a reasonable 70ishk miles. Four months out so hoping for the best. We have enough miles (about 800k) to do RT biz at 155k each but I sure hate to spend that. (and probably wouldn't) We can get Premium Economy for about 120k on most UA flights. Some as little as 100k. But I've seen some flights where PE requires more miles than Biz class! Crazy.

Questions:

Is Premium Economy worth the difference over Economy Plus?

I've heard that if you book PE, and seats in Biz are available on day of departure, they might move PE pax up to Biz in order to sell the PE seats, or move E+ up to PE to sell more E+. Is that a possibility?

Economy can be easily had on most flights for 30k miles. If you buy these seats, can we "upgrade to E+ using miles? Looking at these options only in the event we can't get business award seats. We may have to settle for E+. We have done international E+ in the past but have got spoiled with Biz class over the past few years.

Some of the flights we are looking at show pretty short connections at LHR, FRA, and VIE. About 1:25 in LHR. :55 and 1:30 at FRA. I:15 at VIE. Seems risky even if the plane arrives on time. Munich is also about 1:20 but I've heard that's much easier than FRA would be.

Would connecting in VIE be easier coming from LHR, than if connecting from a US flight?

And what about domestic connections? ORD, IAD, and EWR. Assuming mainline UA metal and not UX, would connections to UA international flights need a lot of time? One ORD connection I saw was 55 minutes, scary if your inbound is delayed.

When might we see Business Saver awards open up for Sept 2 departure and Sept 18 return from AMS? There are Biz saver awards available a few days before and a few days after those dates. I hope that as time gets closer, they'll open up Biz saver for our dates.

If we book Biz at 150k miles and later, they reduce to 60k-70k, can we rebook or ask for an adjustment?

I've seen a few flights involving LOT and TK. They would possibly work for us but nothing fits our schedule yet. Even saw Singapore out of JFK to MAN but that would make a hard connection getting out of MAN. (Biz seats on Singapore would be awesome, though.) And, over the winter, I was seeing a lot of AC Biz seats available, but nothing at all lately.

I know this is rambling but I'd really appreciate any input to any of my questions.

Thanks!

=====================

Looking at booking either IAH to BUD in early September. One of the options is IAH to LHR, then connect on Austria Air to VIE and then on to BUD. All of the connections are about 1:25. That might be doable in VIE but I'm concerned about LHR. Seems pretty risky. We are being driven by finding Saver Miles Biz Class. There are other options: FRA/MUC.

Thoughts?

====================
One of the possibilities for my flights from either IAH/AUS to BUD is via FRA on either UA or LH. Connections are as little as 55 minutes. One is 1:25. Or it might be as much as six hours! Somewhere in between would be nice. Even in the best of times, 55 minutes seems really tight to arrive, clear immigration, and board another flight. 1:25 also seems doubtful.

Are these really possibilities? We hope to be in business class, so that would help a wee bit, I guess.