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There isn’t a better way to fly transcontinental
It’s true. There is only one airline that regularly operates a 3 cabin ( Economy, Business, First ) transcontinental route, and it’s American. In all honesty, the business class experience is so good I’m not really sure that First is necessary, but seats sell, and Miles ain’t complaining. On a recent trip to New York, Miles was able to redeem a business extra upgrade and fly in AA’s lie-flat, reverse herringbone, First Class from Lax to JFK. If you’d like to read more on redeeming business extra upgrades, or even what the heck business extra even is, read this post. Without further adieu, let’s check out Miles’ experience onboard American Airlines First Class A321T Los Angeles to New York.
The Deets:
- When: October 2017
- Where: LAX – JFK
- Flight: AA292
- Upgrade: Business Extra upgrade – Biz to First
American operates a 3 cabin plane on it’s transcon flight between LAX/SFO and JFK.
They’ll also be flying this plane between LAX and Boston later this year, but it won’t be sold as a 3 cabin route, and thus those sitting in the forward-most cabin won’t get the same experience.
Here’s how the plane is broken down.
As you can see in the featured image and below, the first class cabin consists of 5 rows with just 1 seat on each side.
The first class cabin utilizes similar seats to those found in business class on their 777-300ER- review here. One of the best in the sky . Also…you’re in group 1 to board. BYAH!
Here’s a look, side by side, at first and business.
Business (B/E Aerospace Diamond seats) is so good that the existence of First is almost unnecessary, but Miles was not complaining. In fact, other airlines (KLM, Ethiopian, etc) use this seat in their long haul business. Pretty incredible that AA went a step further and installed even better seats in first.
Amenity kit, storage, Bose headphones. Yes, please.
The Food
The scrambled eggs were phenom.
The Seat.
Private, reverse herringbone ( head out, feet in), storage, and proximity to where pets go during take-off and landing.
The special cabinet for pets.
Although ours didn’t stay in it for very long. Can you believe she had the audacity to try and boot Miles?
Overall:
An incredible and private seat with great service to boot. There aren’t many things to complain about with AA’s First Class on the A321T. This is a great use of a Business Extra upgrade, and something that would be worth looking into if routes through JFK open up again, like they did last year, to Central America. Makes a mileage run even more comfortable. Where are those $650 roundtrips from LAX-JFK-MIA-PTY at? Come back!!!!! =)
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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