Hi there. I am planning heading to Berlin in mid September, probably 13th - 22nd (dates are somewhat flexible). I would probably fly out of Sea-Tac, but I could fly out of Vancouver if there was a good reason for it. I'm pretty new flying and miles, but I have managed to accrue 60K UR points. Looking at flights on ITA, it looks like roundtrip airfare in economy is about $1300. So here is my question (2 parts):

1) If I fly Air Berlin, I can transfer my UR points and use 50K of them to upgrade to business class (nominal value $6700, so +$5400). Does this seem like a good value?

2) Is it worth flying business class for a flight of this length? I am 5'-9" 130lbs, so I fit OK in economy. My flight experience is limited to economy class in 737's for trips around 4 hours, which I generally find pretty comfortable. I'm not sure how this extrapolates to a transatlantic flight.

Any help or recommendations are greatly appreciated!

Do you have a stopover in New York? I would fly economy (not a tall guy).

Yes, stopover in New York (JFK) one way. Stopover in Chicago (ORD) on the way back. So the longest leg would only be 8-9 hours.

Besides comfort, the other question is, and sorry to be crass about it .... are you rich?

If you use these miles for upgrade, you won't be able to use the same miles for basically a free round-trip flight in the US/Mexico/Canada, or a free one-way flight international later on.

If you can afford to not care about a free flight later and value 8-9 hours of sitting/sleeping in a bigger seat more than a free flight, then sure, go ahead and upgrade.

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"If I fly Air Berlin, I can transfer my UR points and use 50K of them to upgrade to business class"

How exactly would this work? Are you planning to convert your UR points to BAEC Avios? Can Avios be used for upgrades on Air Berlin flights?

Do you have a stopover in New York?

guv1976: I'm not sure they can. I assumed they could because you could transfer points to them.

I think given that the flight will be only 8 or 9 hours, I would get more value out of spending the points elsewhere.

That's probably a dangerous assumption.