It was just a week ago that my wife’s best friend had her engagement party. Me, being the amazing and understanding husband that I am (
), obviously told her that she shouldn’t think twice to head over to Baltimore for the weekend so they could celebrate together while I hold down the fort with the two children. Ha! Fooled you! That’s obviously not the whole story! Weeks earlier I had decided that it would be nice for me to head home (Vienna) for MLK weekend to surprise my family for the weekend. I hadn’t visited home in close to 6 years and the Shabbes coincided with my father’s birthday. So, after running it by the wife, she agreed and I was off planning the trip. Having never flown premium cabins before this presented the perfect opportunity to finally
"pop the cherry" and so I was off to the races..
At first I was going to just book OS J as it is direct and the times work well for me but then I was convinced by D93 and some others to
“go big or go home”. (Also, boy are taxes Ex-USA high when using AC) So I transferred some miles over to SQ and waitlisted Suites for the JFK-FRA leg. I bothered the SQ twitter feed every other day and they were fast and nice in helping and noting my request. By the 3rd time calling, they were well aware of my Dad’s birthday that I was trying to make.
Finally it started to get more concrete when right around 2.5 weeks ago the SQ seat cleared and I was able to go ahead and book it. Great! Now I was in FRA and after having looked at OTA's for OW’s and RT’s I saw that FRA-VIE is
waaaay more expensive then I thought (over $220) and thus decided that I was best off using 12.5k AC miles to book FRA-VIE OW. With the outbound all booked it was time to think about the return.
What to do, what to do!?
Being so close to Frankfurt, how could I pass on the possibility of the
First Class Terminal and a beautiful little
duckie? Well, I couldn’t. I waited until about 16 days out and started hammering the ANA,UA and AC search tools hourly.
Nada. Zilch. Rien. 
I started looking very close in and checking M&M and OTAs as well and the FRA-JFK leg was close to never available even with the cabin being completely empty. I was getting very worried that I wouldn’t be able to actually transfer via FRA in the end. That was until D93 once again pointed out that I should look into EWR. Boy did I not like that idea. While I loved the idea of Frankfurt over Munich, I sure didn’t like the prospect of commuting home for hours from EWR as opposed to minutes from JFK. Whatever! What won’t you do for the
“real” travel experience and the best ground service Lufthansa has to offer.
I checked AC for FRA-EWR and lo and behold it was available in F. But I needed to get to Frankfurt and the only doable VIE-FRA flight I could find was part of a married segment with FRA-JFK in J attached to it. Phone in hand I was off to get this booked as fast as I could. I called AC and after inputting my “6 digit code” I was asked to provide a Pin. Huh? Pin? What's that? Turns out it is something rather new and can be setup on your AC profile. 10 minutes later I was back on the phone - this time with a working Pin - and was finally connected to a Rep. I was hoping that they would do me the favor of manual requesting a seat for FRA-JFK but they were not that friendly that day. I can’t complain though because after explaining that I wanted the Vienna flight that I saw as part of a married segment he was happy to perform
“his magic” and was able to book me on the VIE-FRA leg, cancel the FRA-JFK leg and then add on FRA-EWR in F.
I am now fully booked on the inbound as well and have 6 hours to spend in the FCT which I am very much looking forward to and - after weighing the Pros with the Cons - will happily sacrifice the short commute home from JFK.
I am typing this during my current lunch and am excited for my first trip home in a
looooong time as well as being able to make this journey for the first time using some of the best products out there. To say that I am excited is the understatement of the day. Nah, of 2016!
Thanks to y’all for all of your help with not only this trip but overall and enabling me to learn about this whole world of DDF that is vast, fun and very rewarding.
I’ll check back in from the Virgin Clubhouse tonight!
See you there...
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