Two First Class Wins
Lufthansa First Class is genuinely hard to get into. The seats are rarely sold outright — they exist, but the prices are steep enough that most people don't buy them. What Lufthansa does instead is release them late, quietly, to frequent flyer programmes: typically within two weeks of departure, sometimes within days. If you're watching, and if you have the miles, you can catch them. Twice, I did.
Both redemptions went through Frankfurt, both used the Lufthansa First Class Terminal — a separate building from the main airport, with its own entrance, check-in, restaurant, spa, and transfer to the aircraft by Porsche. It's a detail that sounds absurd until you experience it, at which point it just feels like a very different category of travel.
The Costa Rica trip had a straightforward reason: a former colleague — by then a good friend — was living in Alajuela, about forty minutes from San José, and I'd been meaning to visit for a while. A few days in the capital at either end, and the rest of the time based at his place, using it as a starting point for getting around the country.
The highlight was Zoo Ave — formally the Rescate Wildlife Rescue Center in La Garita — which turned out to be something quite different from what the name suggests. It's a rescue and rehabilitation centre for Costa Rica's wildlife: animals brought in injured, orphaned, or confiscated from the illegal pet trade. The ones that can't be released into the wild stay on permanently. The result is an unusually close encounter with animals that would otherwise be nearly impossible to see — sloths, monkeys, crocodiles, macaws, toucans — all within a few acres of tropical forest.
The flights themselves were their own small story. I'd booked using a SAS Amex two-for-one voucher — fifty percent off the miles cost — and Lufthansa's First Class had opened up just in time on both the outbound and return. An A340-600 via Frankfurt each way, and the kind of flight where you arrive having slept properly and eaten well, which is not something I'd previously been able to say about long-haul travel.
The Japan redemption came together differently — driven less by a reason to go and more by the mathematics of an expiring voucher. In December 2019, browsing Lufthansa's availability, I spotted a First Class seat from Frankfurt to Tokyo for New Year's Day itself. Deciding that was reason enough, I booked it.
Getting home was a separate puzzle. I'd held a business class return as a placeholder, with the intention of switching to First if availability appeared. It did — the day after I arrived — for the following morning's departure. I pushed my return back a day and took it. The whole thing cost little beyond taxes, fees, and some careful watching.
Tokyo in early January is quieter than usual, and full of ritual. On the fifth, I made it to Senso-ji in Asakusa for hatsumode — the traditional first shrine visit of the New Year, which in Japan is less a religious obligation than a cultural one: most people go, regardless of how observant they otherwise are. The approach along Nakamise-dori was dense with people and stalls selling New Year's foods; the shrine itself was worth pushing through for.
The rest of the time I wandered — deliberately off the usual routes, east into Katsushika and other parts of the city that don't appear in travel guides. And, naturally, a visit to a Pokémon Center. One small detail stands out in hindsight: more people than usual were wearing masks on the subway that week. I picked up a few myself, out of curiosity rather than concern — a few weeks before anyone had heard of COVID-19.
