yrs

Hi,

I am considering booking an F award for:

IAD-Europe-BKK-HYD

Would appreciate recommendations for :
1) the best airline from IAD-Europe
2) the best connection point in Europe

I am considering TG for Europe-BKK-HYD since it is the only *A carrier that flies into/out of HYD.

yrs

I plan to use USair DM miles for the award ticket.

mecabq

LH is always a good choice, because of the first-class lounge and terminals in FRA and MUC. Their service in F is very solid, though not as luxurious as some others. (If entering on LH F and departing on TG F, you get access to the lounge, as discussed in other threads.)

Or there is LX through ZRH, but it is difficult to find an F award. Aside from the LH lounges, ZRH is a much more pleasant transit point than FRA, and slightly better than MUC, in my opinion.

These are, I think, the only carriers besides UA to offer three-class service trans-Atlantic from IAD. Unfortunately you will be constrained by what's available on an award booking. There is a chance that you will find obscure options (like UA/TG via BRU or FCO) as your only redemption choices.

TK is a good option, but they only have C on this route. OS's new C product has gotten good reviews. SN will be starting IAD, again with only two-class service. I'd probably put SK as my last choice, though CPH is as good of a place as any to transfer in Europe.

Do you have to go through Europe? If not, then NH via NRT is a choice too.

bennytma

F award seats are hard to come by. I'd recommend searching for award space on www.ual.com and then calling US DM to make the booking. You'll likely have to walk the DM agent through each segment. With DM you can get to HYD via Europe or via Asia. So you could transit Europe on the outbound and via Asia on the return or vice versa.

Your best bet is probably going to try for NH IAD-NRT connecting to TG NRT-BKK-HYD. Also Silkair flies SIN-HYD which I think is possible to book using DM so you could do IAD-NRT-SIN-HYD using NH and SQ. For example I see F award space IAD-NRT on NH on Sept 3 connecting on to BKK on TG's A380 in J which would be pretty sweet.

There is likely to be better availability flying UA F to Europe/Dubai/Asia and then onwards on TG/NH/SQ but UA F is nowhere near NH F.

I've also found decent F award space on Air China's new 773 which looks like a nice hard product. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb1z8AVqrec You'd end up flying something like IAD-LAX-PEK-BKK-HYD which is not ideal but would be a nice back up plan.

Sadly routing on LH IAD-FRA on the 748i and FRA-BKK on TG A380 isn't possbile because you can no longer use DM in F on LH and I don't know what TG's F award availability is, if any, on the A380. Also for what its worth LX rarely opens up F award space. SQ the same.