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Tips for finding Domestic routes with International Business Class: American Airlines

the inside of an airplane

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SOOOOOO you wanna fly flat across the country, huh? Ya, me too

A great way to fly Domestic routes with International Business Class products is with a repositioning flight/route. What’s even better is using an upgrade to get into that cabin on your economy ticket.

What’s a repositioning route?

Airlines reposition between hubs that service long-haul international destinations. One instance of this is the 777-300ER that flies in from Sydney that continues on to Miami, from there it either goes on to South America or to Europe – as both destinations are now serviced by the widebody 777. You can tell it is this plane when it is annotated 77W

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 10.55.07 AM

and the seatmap which shows the new cabins

1-2-1 configuration
1-2-1 configuration

A great way to see which widebody planes that fly specific routes on American Airlines is to use aacargo.com – you can actually search timetables for cargo shipping and therefore see the entire American Airlines schedule: in this case, specified for widebodies. Let’s take a glimpse at the schedule through the end of June – (there is a pdf that’s 86 pages long for a more extensive look at the schedule), but for now let’s take a quick look at some info from the shorter version.

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 10.36.14 AM

You can cross reference this list with the options you’re given when booking a flight. As you can see here there are a lot of flights that are utilizing the 767-300 ( 763) and the 777-300ER ( 77W). The tricky part of finding these routes is that not all of the 763s actually are retrofitted. So you may get this:

image courtesy of aa.cn
image courtesy of aa.cn

or you may get this

image courtesy of airliners.net
image courtesy of airliners.net

So it’s worth checking out the seat maps to make sure you are getting the new configuration: 1-2-1 not the 2-2-2 on the old planes. It’s worth noting that the 763 business class markets as first class domestically. As far as I can find, the only 2 routes that actively market domestic business class is from LAX to JFK and MIA respectively. Those use the A321T and 77W.  Below is the seatmap of a 763 on the LAX-MIA route

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 11.08.37 AM

 500 mile upgrades to fly flat

Los Angeles to Miami seems like a great leg to use 500 mile upgrades and fly in a great international, forward cabin product. The route is 2342 miles according to www.milecalc.com and therefore would need 5-500 mile upgrade certificates.

Screen Shot 2016-05-06 at 10.15.32 AM

How can I get 500 miles certs?

American elites earn 4 – 500 mile upgrades for every 12,500 EQM that they fly. You can also buy them for $40

  • Executive Platinum are granted, space avail, complimentary upgrades 100 hours ahead of the flight.
  • Platinum would be placed on the upgrade list 72 hours in advance using 500 mile certs
  • Golds -would be placed on the upgrade list 24 hours in advance using 500 mile certs

P.S.

If you can find a 777-200 plane that is flying domestically, you can actually sit in business class with an economy ticket as the plane technically flies as a two cabin plane. You won’t get any of the business class services, but you will get an angled lie-flat seat.

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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