My brother-in-law and family had been collecting miles on Lufthansa Miles & More, at my behest, or maybe coercion. The miles expire 36 months after the date you earn them and a big batch of miles was now close to expiry. I checked with them if they had any plans of using them, but they didn’t, so they asked me to use them if I wanted.
Redemption on Lufthansa Miles & More was a little different than on United MileagePlus. The number of cross airline combinations which come up in the result is limited. Also, Lufthansa Miles & More passes on fuel surcharges for award tickets, unlike United MileagePlus.
Looking at the cache of miles that were going to expire, I zeroed in on redemption to South America to maximize the value of the miles. I think I enjoyed the research and award search for redemptions almost as much as the journey on the flights itself.
For the outbound journey, we would fly Ethiopian Airlines from Mumbai to Addis Ababa and then connect to the Ethiopian Airlines flight via São Paulo to Buenos Aires in Argentina 🔗. This one of the handful of direct flights between Africa and South America, so it was going to be a novelty to cross the South Atlantic Ocean on our way there.
| Date | Flight | From | At | To | At | Airline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| THU 02 OCT | ET 611 | MUMBAI, IN (BOM) | 04:05 | ADDIS ABABA, ET (ADD) | 07:00 | ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES |
| THU 02 OCT | ET 506 | ADDIS ABABA, ET (ADD) | 09:50 | SAO PAULO, BR (GRU) | 16:20 | ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES |
| THU 02 OCT | ET 506 | SAO PAULO, BR (GRU) | 17:30 | BUENOS AIRES, AR (EZE) | 20:25 | ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES |
For the return journey, I found flights which would take us from Santiago in Chile 🔗 to Panama City on Copa Airlines. After almost a 14 hour layover in Panama City 🔗, we would connect to Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul and then onwards to Mumbai.
| Date | Flight | From | At | To | At | Airline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SAT 11 OCT | CM 118 | SANTIAGO, CL (SCL) | 01:13 | PANAMA CITY, PA (PTY) | 06:05 | COPA AIRLINES |
| SAT 11 OCT | TK 801 | PANAMA CITY, PA (PTY) | 20:00 | ISTANBUL, TR (IST) | 16:55 (+1) | TURKISH AIRLINES |
| SAT 12 OCT | TK 720 | ISTANBUL, TR (IST) | 20:15 | MUMBAI, IN (BOM) | 05:00 (+1) | TURKISH AIRLINES |
With that, we were all set for first trip to South America, thanks to Lufthansa Miles & More, and of course my brother-in-law and his family.
200000 miles redeemed | 3 countries
3 airlines | 4 new airports