August is a quiet month if it comes to business travel and therefore it was no surprise that in April among the so called “Meilenschnäppchen” were business class flights to New York. “Meilenschnäppchen” means there is a discount in the number of needed award miles. In this case, it means a ticket in Business Class from Germany to selected destinations in North America would cost only 50000 award miles instead of the usual 70000 award miles. Even with the so called “Senator Partner Award”, which is a discount of 50% award miles if a second person is traveling together with the Senator (or Hon Circle Member) on an award ticket, this was a discount.

Usually August is a more quiet month in our office and taking a few days off was possible, so I and two colleagues decided to book a quick trip to the Big Apple, since two of us had friends and relatives in the region and the remaining colleague wanted to visit New York for the first time. As my colleague is afraid of flying, she asked us if she could join us, which of course was very welcome.

Since the non-stop was not available for our return flight, we booked the latest possible flight on Lufthansa leaving New York into Frankfurt. At the time of booking this was a 747-400, which was switched later to a 747-8I, which was a nice surprise. So I was able to try both configurations of the new Business Class and also able to offer my colleague the possibility to fly in the upper deck of a 747 for the first time.

For our hotels I decided to split the stay between the Hyatt Regency in Jersey, which was better for driving towards the suburbs of New Jersey, and two nights at the Hyatt Regency Times Square right in the heart of Manhattan.

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