Almost seven years from this behemoth’s debut flight, the plane still has its own allure…

The A380 is the opening venue for many new advances in Business and First Class seats. The advent of the plane provoked a number of carriers into reinventing First Class and most others to make serious upgrades. When Etihad introduces its First Class, three-room apartment on the London-Abu Dhabi route in December, it will do it on an A380. This First Class—if you can call it that—will cost $40,000+ round-trip

So, the plane’s a showcase—and that’s why it’s a good place to look for the best in-flight experience. At fares less than $40k, here are 56 ways to it, paying cash or using miles, starting at just $235 or 57,500 miles one-way.

The Top Four Low-Fare Routes with Emirates on an A380

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Paying Cash

Fly a low-fare route—that usually means a shorter route serviced with an A380 —or fly off-season, usually the summer or the holidays.

Low-Fare Routes are usually less than 1,350 miles. For instance, Bangkok to Hong Kong or Auckland to Sydney on Emirates.

Seasonal Low-Fare Routes

Summer and the holidays are the best times to get low fares on A380 routes to Europe. The latter offers especially significant savings because business travelers tend to ground themselves over Thanksgiving and Christmas, New Year’s, forcing airlines to dump premium seats, sometimes at prices that are less than coach.

Take Houston-Frankfurt on Lufthansa during Thanksgiving last year: The round-trip Business Class fare was $1,974. (A similar fare should come up again this year.) A coach class ticket was $1,239, a difference of $735 for a 21-hour round-trip flight, or only about $35 more per flight hour.

Over the last few years, most airlines have slashed summer fares to Europe on A380 routes, too, dropping prices to $2,965 round-trip from the East Coast. See the chart below for sample savings on seasonal Business and First Class fares.

Top 32 Special Airfare Deals on the A380 in Business and First Class

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Free Mileage-Award Space on the A380

Here are 18 A380 routes with good availability of mileage awards in Business and First Class. Redemption is based on using miles on the operating airline. For example, using Miles & More for Lufthansa flights. See chart at bottom for mileage transfer partners if you need miles. Booking Business Class using partner award space (e.g., flying Lufthansa using All Nippon miles) sometimes reduces the number of seats available.

Survey of Award Availability on the A380 for One Traveler*

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How to Get Miles for these Flights?

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