Transatlantic business class space to Europe using miles from a Star Alliance airline like United or Air Canada is often easiest to find into and out of Brussels… both on United and on Brussels Airlines.
Brussels Airlines has been a Star Alliance member for four years but with award space only in the past few days made searchable on United’s website. (Previously you could search it using the ANA, Aeroplan, or FlightStats websites.)
Ironically United.com adds this functionality two months after United proactively removed Singapore Airlines award space from their website (and lied about it being Singapore’s fault).
And, of course, after United jacked up the price of partner awards.
Check it out yourself, though — for quite some time I’ve been pointing out how good the award availability is.
And since Brussels Airlines hubs there, of course, you can connect beyond Brussels to elsewhere in Europe and also North Africa (although as a relatively smaller carrier frequencies are limited so layovers may be long-ish), the latter given Belgium’s colonial past.
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DAMMIT!
Interesting – I had not heard of Brussels Airlines so I’ll have to check them out. Thanks for sharing!
Given a choice: Brussels or lufthansa (business class)? I need to know if I should change flights thank you!!
About the connections, it is rather sub-Saharan Africa instead of North Africa (where they serve just two destinations in Morocco on a weekly basis). Besides Air France it is the airline with by far the largest diversity of African destinations from Europe. Some of them are (depending on the period) served with a relative high frequency of 5-7 flights per week (Abidjan, Kinshasa, Douala, Yaounde, Kigali, Entebbe, …)
@Anita – if there’s any risk of Lufthansa’s old business class then Brussels Airlines is a no brainer
Their long haul business class looks very good. Check it out:
http://www.brusselsairlines.com/com/misc/new_long_haul_experience.aspx
I flew Business Class on Brussels Airlines from Kigali in 2012, and it involved uncomfortable recliner seats. Maybe they have improved since then?
Their new business class is quite good and will appear on their transatlantic routes
So what *A partners don’t show up on united.com? LOT, Singapore…
I am traveling to Barcelona in May and had booked 6 months ago a business first award ticket home from Brussels. I figure 5 days in Barcelona and 3 days in Brussels. Nice trip. Award availability at Saver level was unbelievable.
sounds like they removed it. i cant find a single available flight JFK-BRU.
Definitely gone.