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Travel on Point(s) is an independent, advertising-supported website. This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites like Cardratings.com. This compensation does not impact how or where products appear on this site. Travel on Point(s) has not reviewed all available credit card offers on this site. Reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any partner entities.

Award Availability to Europe

If you haven't finalized your summer travel plans yet, you're in luck. We have spotted lots of business class award availability on Lufthansa and United out of Washington Dulles (IAD) to Europe for July and August 2023. Most flights with availability are to Frankfurt (FRA) but there are quite a few to Munich (MUC) as well. Depending on the day, you can take your pick between flying on United Polaris or Lufthansa business class. And on some days, we're seeing as many as 8 seats available! Award Availability to Europe is always welcome news, so let's dive in.

Lufthansa award availability to Europe

Award Availability to Europe: Award Space Details

For the Lufthansa flights, most are operated on an A330 aircraft, but there is some availability to FRA on Lufthansa's 747. Meanwhile, United's Polaris business class seats are a great business class product. I find them much more comfortable than Lufthansa's business class, while Lufthansa's service is consistently much better than United's. Whichever one you book, it's a lot better than flying in economy!

For return flights, availability is more limited but still there. We have also seen a decent amount of availability flying into Boston (BOS) as well as flights on Austrian Airlines out of Vienna (VIE) to IAD.

Here is availability out of IAD to FRA in July and August for 2 people:

And here is availability back from FRA to IAD for July and August for 2 people. As mentioned, some of these flights are connecting in BOS or on Austrian connecting in VIE):

How To Search & Book

Our favorite website to search for Star Alliance award availability to Europe is United's. You have many different options to choose from when booking (prices per person, one-way):

  • Aeroplan: 70,000 (no surcharges)
  • United: between 80,000 and 88,000 (no surcharges)
  • LifeMiles: 63,000 (no surcharges)
  • ANA: 88,000 (round-trip only)
  • Turkish: 45,000
  • Singapore: 81,000

Chase is currently offering a 20% transfer bonus to Aeroplan, meaning you can book this for just 59,000 Ultimate Rewards one-way via Aeroplan.

Lufthansa passes hefty surcharges on to partners on award bookings (around $800), so you'll want to avoid options like ANA and Turkish if booking Lufthansa. But for flights on United, ANA and Turkish are great options. Just note that bookings through ANA must be round-trip.

You can check out which points currencies transfer to each of these through our ToP transfer partner tool. When selecting which loyalty program to book through, also consider their stopover rules and whether you can take advantage of those.

Award Availability to Europe: ToP Thoughts

If you wanted to go to Europe this summer, you now have no excuse. You can book one of these flights no matter which transferable points currencies you have. No more lollygagging; get to booking!

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