Miles to Milan: Non-stop Flights in United BusinessFirst Class on the Boeing 767
On my recent trip to Milan and Zurich, I flew United BusinessFirst both directions. Our plane was the Boeing 767. While I tend to not be very concerned about economy class vs. business class on domestic flights that are only a few hours, I believe having comfortable seating on longer trips is key when having a significant time zone change.
Central Europe is 6 hours ahead of New York, in this case, but I arrived well-rested and ready to go after sleeping comfortably on my redeye to Europe. Both directions were direct flights and the schedule could not have worked out better. These tickets normally cost at least $4,000 or $5,000 so I got great value for my United miles. Normally, a round-trip flight in business class would cost 100,000 miles alone, but I maximized United’s stopover and open-jaw rules to also add in a business class flight from Rio de Janeiro for only an additional 20,000 miles.
You can read about the rest of my European summer trip to Milan and Zurich in my trip report series. I explain and review the various points for how we pulled off a $10,000 vacation for $266:
- A $10,000 European Summer Trip for $266
- Non-stop Flights in United BusinessFirst Class on the Boeing 767
- Two Days Sightseeing and Shopping in Milan
- My Stay at The Park Hyatt Milan for 22,000 Points A Night
- An Afternoon in Beautiful Lake Como
Getting Direct BusinessFirst Flights
I started planning my summer trip to Europe only about 3-4 weeks ahead. I was planning to fly into Milan and leave from Zurich. At the time, no direct business class flights were available to either city so I booked the best routing I could find. My flight to Milan was initially booked on Lufthansa with a connection in Frankfurt and my flight from Zurich was on US Airways with a connection in Philadelphia. Both were in business class, but neither was direct.
Of course, I was interested in the direct flights on United to Milan and Zurich and was hoping they’d become available before I had to fly. As a 1K, I can make changes to my award tickets as much as I want so a switch to the better flight route would be no problem provided availability becomes available. Otherwise, within 21 days, changing flights costs $100 for general members, $50 for Premier Silver Elite members or $25 for Premier Gold Elite members.
United often tends to release its unsold seats at Saver award level very close to the flight. It’s completely distressed inventory at that point so they may as well sell it for miles. I could see by looking at other closer dates that BusinessFirst cabins for the direct flights I was interested in were not full and award seats were available. This gave me confidence there was a good chance I’d get the seats I want. So I waited. The day before I was scheduled to leave for Milan, business class award seats on the direct flight EWR-MXP opened up for Friday night; there were still 6 unsold seats in business class on that flight. I called United Customer Service and asked them to change my award to the better flight and I was on my way.
My Tuesday morning flight back from Zurich only released business class seats with miles the day before the flight. There were 7 open seats in business class. I was super happy when I was able to get these seats. Although I’d have liked to try out US Airways’ Envoy Suites offering from Zurich to Philadelphia, I highly dislike connections on short trips.
Now that you know how I got the seats, let’s move on the flights and planes themselves. I’ll just have a general discussion of both flights at once. The two cabins, seats and services were nearly identical, as far as I could notice. The only difference between the flight to Milan and the flight from Zurich was that the former had 8 rows of seats and the latter had 6 rows. Both were in a 2-1-2 configuration (each row had 2 seats on each side and 1 in the middle) and both were flat-bed.
The seats
On any flight, my biggest concern is the seat comfort. That, to me, is the whole point of business class. If I can sleep comfortably on the overnight flight to my European vacation destination, I am ready to sightsee and enjoy the culture as soon as I arrive! This helps me match to the regular schedule immediately and makes for a much better first few days of vacation. That’s definitely worth the extra miles, in my opinion. Similarly, if I can be comfortable on the way back, then I am well rested and ready to go back to work and transition into my regular life with little disruption.
The seats on United BusinessFirst are flat-beds. They go 180 degrees flat. This is different from lie-flat seats, which are not completely flat and force you to travel with an incline. The seats are about 75 inches pitch and 21 inches width. Although I am fairly tall at 5’8” (though not relative to men!), I had no problem lying down in my flat-bed seat and got 5-6 hours of sleep on the way there. Even a slightly bigger person is likely to find it comfortable.
Prior to take off, we are also given amenity kits with socks, ear plugs, a sleep mask, a toothbrush, toothpaste, etc.
Dining
On both flights, the menu included a shrimp appetizer and a salad…
a choice of four main courses…
a fruit and cheese plate and ice cream for dessert…
and, of course, all kinds of different wines and liquors!
Entertainment and In-Seat Power
Every BusinessFirst seat is equipped with a personal entertainment system that comes with noise-cancelation headphones. There is selection of over 100 movies, including new releases and older movies by categories. There are also TV shows, even some of the recent highly rated ones such as “House of Cards” or “Game of Thrones”. I watched Life of Pi and Side Effects on the way there and House of Lies on the way back.
There is also in-seat power so you can plug in your laptop, cell phone or other electronic devices.
You can read more about United BusinessFirst services on their own website as well.
My trip involved only spending 3 days in Europe visiting Milan, Lake Como and Zurich. Changing time zones short term often present a challenge in making adjustments. Because I was able to redeem my United Airlines miles for a $4,000 business class ticket, I slept comfortably both ways and enjoyed my flights! This was key in having a great trip!
Check out the rest of my trip report, including how we booked a $10,000 European summer trip for $266:
- A $10,000 European Summer Trip for $266
- Non-stop Flights in United BusinessFirst Class on the Boeing 767
- Two Days Sightseeing and Shopping in Milan
- My Stay at the Park Hyatt Milan for 22,000 Points A Night
- An Afternoon in Beautiful Lake Como
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That’s great! I flew the 767 to Copenhagen last year. Totally agree makes a huge difference on the first day of vacation and worth every mile. Keep up the good work!
So if I’m seated by the window and would like to use the restroom, and my neighbor is sleeping flat, do I need to climb over him/her?
You do, but the seats are low enough to the ground and narrow at the bottom where you can just step over. I never ended up waking my friend Rene when I had to use the restroom.
What is 1K that let’s you make flight changes without any fee and how can I get it???
We cannot wait for our economy flights to TYO on December (also via FRA) and return flights in business class with LH. I wish we could change one segment for LX flight in A340.
It’s the highest elite status level. It can be attained by flying 100,000 Premier qualifying miles or 120 Premier qualifying segments in a single calendar year or having a million miler with 1K status name you as a domestic partner (my case is the latter).
Also, if there is a schedule change on your itinerary initiated by the airline, they will often let you change the affected leg and waive the change fee. Just call and explain the new schedule does not work for you.
I am also going to Asia for the first time in December!
100K qualifying miles or 120 segments flown in one year means a loooot of flights, correct? Will 1M miles tranferred to my account qualify me?
In fact, a day after we booked our flights from NYC we received a note about the change in schedule. Apparently, one of the LH fligts leaves 5 minutes earlier or later. I’ll see if it works. Though, I was told earlier today that we cannot change FRA-TYO flight for FRA-ZRH-TYO.
Unfortunately, it’s 1 million lifetime flown miles… I wish it were the transferred in option too!
When were your tickets booked? If they were booked before June 19, date changes should be free although carrier changes are not. However, sometimes customer service agents can be confused into not charging the carrier change fee by confidently and calmly citing that changes on tickets booked before June 19 do not incur change fees as long as the origin and destination cities are the same. However, YMMV (your miles may vary) on this one.
Our flights for December were booked last Friday. And if I am not mistaken we found out about the flight change on Monday when I was trying to get a trip confirmation. I had to accept a change without knowing first what exactly was changed.
I see. Well, it’s unlikely a 5 minute change will yield results, but a more significant change can lead to waived change fees if you play your cards right!