Swiss Miss?

As I work my way through becoming a certified “blogging expert” – which is totally a thing – one of the things I never know about is whether stuff I happen upon will be of interest to you, my loyal reader(s). Hyatt mistake price at a mediocre hotel in Paris? OMG LOL OMFG!!!! Tons of availability in first class from New Zealand to the US? Snoozeville. So, with that in mind, here’s something:

Swiss just loaded a bunch of business class availability from Zurich to San Francisco next spring. I found out because I have a bunch of Expertflyer alerts set for the day I’m flying home from my trade show in Germany in June. Here’s United’s calendar for that route (some of those days with availability are for mixed cabin awards on other carriers, but most of them have direct availability on Swiss):

As far as my situation is concerned, I’m trying to decide whether or not to change my current itinerary, which is in business class on SAS via Copenhagen. There are some pros and cons to changing. Pro: no connection, no 7AM flight from Zurich to Copenhagen followed by a 3-hour layover, and the direct flight on Swiss would give me time to check out the awesome-looking terrace in the Swiss business class lounge. Con: Aeroplan’s new higher change fee ($150 CAD). Plus, I’d have to call Swiss customer service to pick a seat, since there are only a limited number of “throne” seats, and all but three are currently filled on the day I need to fly – and it would suck if I went through the hassle of calling Aeroplan to change my flight only to find out I had to *GASP* sit next to a stranger. Plus, I’m booked in 9H on my SAS flight, which, as you’ll know as a loyal reader of my blog, is my favorite seat on the plane. I think it’s worth the shitty itinerary in exchange for 11 hours in 9H on SAS’s A340 vs. rolling the dice on Swiss. That said, I also have a bunch of alerts for first class awards back from Europe on that day (Swiss via ZRH, which I know is unlikely, as well as Singapore and Lufthansa via Frankfurt), and I’ll jump through all manner of hoops if any of those become available.

So there you go – is this interesting to you? Is it rare for Swiss to release so much award space? Does that calendar not really count as “so much,” since there’s only availability on around half of the days? Who knows, but if I help just one person fly back from Europe in luxury, then I’ve succeeded at life.