My brother-in-law and his family had been collecting miles on Lufthansa Miles & More at my behest—or maybe coercion. The miles expire 36 months after the date they are earned, and a large batch of miles was now close to expiry. I checked with them to see if they had any plans to use them, but they didn’t, so they asked me to use them if I wanted.
Redemption on Lufthansa Miles & More is a little different than on United MileagePlus. The number of cross-airline combinations that appear in the results is limited. Additionally, 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 a 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 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 is 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 that 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 a 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 our first trip to South America, thanks to Lufthansa Miles & More and, of course, my brother-in-law and his family.
200,000 miles redeemed | 3 countries
3 airlines | 4 new airports
