Deep Dive: Brussels Round Trip Business Class for only $11.80

Author: Matthew January 10, 2024

In my 2023 free flights wrap-up I showcased the two business class seats I got from Washington Dulles (IAD) to Brussels (BRU) for only 90,000 points and $11.80 total. This deep dive blog will go into the nitty gritty details on how I found and booked round-trip business class flights and a hotel, which normally would be over $20,000 for two people. 

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Key Takeaways

My hope is that this post inspires you to use your points for some aspirational trips in the future. To summarize some key takeaways/learnings

• Flexibility is key - We looked at multiple European cities and played with several departing/returning dates for options. 

• Holiday/weekend bookings are possible - We flew on Friday, December 29 and returned on New Year's Day on January 1. While it's not guaranteed, your ideal timing is indeed possible with point bookings. 

• Keep checking - Our initial return was for economy because business class was 150,000 points per person. I checked every few days for any point updates, and I fortunately found them seven days before departure (a Christmas day gift). 

United Polaris Business Class - IAD to BRU

Booking

I started searching for flights around New Years time as early as October. The main search tool I used was seats.aero which looks at last-minute award flight redemptions for only a few months out. The tool is really easy to use, but not comprehensive so I still had to use it as a starting point for my search. As we got closer to after Thanksgiving, I found 3 routes that left from IAD at a solid business class rate; Frankfurt, Vienna, and Brussels. All three utilized Star Alliance airlines, which included Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and United. Since these were all saver award (cheaper flight redemption awards), I could also find all of these routes on Turkish Airlines, which is also part of Star Alliance. Now why would I look there for seats? The reasoning is because on United, the flight UA 950 for IAD -> BRU was 80,000 points and $5.90 per person. On Air Canada, the same exact flight was available for 60,000 points and $119 per person. But on Turkish Airlines, again the same exact flight, was 45,000 points and $5.90 per person.  Why this happens in short is each airline has their own chart or way of calculating the cost of their miles for certain flights. 

With these 3 options all at great point values, we decided on Brussels because of the nice Hyatt there and we heard a lot of good things about Bruges, nearby. On December 2nd, I called Turkish Airlines (can't buy directly online for two people) to book the flight. I had to call 3 times because the first two agents weren't helpful. The third agent was able to see the availability and walk me through the steps of booking the flight! So this trip was locked in. Additionally, since I put in our United membership numbers, the flight appeared on our United accounts, which made it easier to select seats and pre-order meals.  If we had purchased the flights by cash, it would have cost over $10,000. Economy itself would have been $1,400 for the two of us. 

United Polaris Business Class - BRU to IAD

Booking

After booking the flight to Brussels, I booked economy flights for the return because they were only 40,000 + $60.60 per person. The business class option was 150,000 points and not on any other airline, so not very worth it. Still, the economy booking was a decent value for a $700 flight. However, knowing that last-minute business class options can pop-up, I create a points alert on pointsyeah.com to let me know if any saver business awards would pop up. I also manually checked every few days to confirm myself. 

They day I returned from my free cruise on December 23 (since I finally got back internet) of course I checked for this flight. I actually saw the saver award on United for 80,000 points, but it was only for one seat! We decided to hold to see if more seats would open up so we could both get business class. Lo and behold,  on Christmas day, one week before our return flight, I checked United and saw that that there were 3 saver seats available. And when I checked on Air Canada, it was 60,000 points + $119 there as well. Now, I could have called Turkish to go for the 45,000 point, but I didn't want to waste time calling them, especially on a holiday. So instead, I went with the Air Canada route. They have an option to pay for the flight with all points, which would then be 147,000 points total for the two of us.  At this time, Chase was also running a 20% transfer bonus with Air Canada, so I only needed to transfer 124,000 points from my Chase Sapphire Reserve to Air Canada. The points were transferred instantaneously and I was able to secure the two business class seats. While the redemption value was not as good as the departure with Turkish Airlines, it was still an amazing deal, again considering the cash price was over $10,000 for the two of us. 

The Experience

No United Polaris lounge at Brussels, so we just went to a partner one nearby, the Diamond lounge. The flight service didn't meet the service level of the departing flight, the worst offense being the staff forgetting my beef pre-order. But still, the chicken was good and I got a miles compensation. Overall the ability to lie-flat to take a nap and watch movie while reclining was the coveted feature for this flight.