Reviews

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 Review: London to Chicago

a stuffed animal on a chair

We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com and CardRatings. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.


American Airlines Business Class 777-200 Review: London to Chicago

This American Airlines business class 777-200 Review is another chapter in the weekend wedding in London trip report. When we were looking at tickets to get to the wedding, economy was running in excess of $1500.  What we ended up finding was that a roundtrip from Dublin to Dublin in business class was only $300 more than economy from lax-lhr-lax. Since I need to be back in London at the end of September I figured I could just buy my return flights now, and figure out an alternate way of getting to the wedding on August 1st.  What I ended finding was a routing to the London wedding via Germany with Air Berlin for 57,500 AA and $85 and this flight was a part of the routing that got me home.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 7 of 46

Since this new roundtrip originated in Dublin we needed to get there. We flew up to Dublin on August 2nd at 7:30am and landed about 3 hours before our flight back down through LHR for this leg. Needless to say, by the time I got on the plane I was beyond exhausted. However, I was still VERY excited to try out another one of the American Airlines business class products. So far this year I’ve been able to review both the 777-300ER and the A321T, but wanted to see how the 777-200 compared to the 777-300ER. I also had the opportunity to fly the old configuration of the 777-200 in First Class last year and wanted to see how the 2 cabin competes with the old 3 cabin.

American Airlines business class 777-200
777-200 seat layout

 

The Deets on American Airlines Business Class 777-200: LHR-ORD

  • When: August 2nd, 2016
  • Airline: American Airlines
  • Route: LHR-ORD
  • Flight: AA 91
  • Plane: 777-200 Retrofit
  • Duration: 7 hours 45 mins
  • Class: Business Class
  • Seat: 1H
  • Program: AA
  • Status: Platinum
  • Miles Earned: 7906 EQM

 

Check in

We did everything in Dublin and it was very easy. Ticketed all the way through from Dublin to Los Angeles; however, upon landing in London we did land in terminal 5 and were given new AA stock tickets before we transited to terminal 3. I’m not sure we really needed to do this or not, but we were shooed into their ticketing area that is stationed between T5 and T3 after you get off the bus. After we made it to T3 we went straight to the BA lounge and rested until we boarded our flight. I was hoping to check out the Cathay Pacific lounge at Heathrow, but it’s renovation hasn’t completed yet. It also occurred to me that had we kept our old BA stock tickets they may have let us enjoy spa benefits, but with the AA tickets it was obvious we weren’t flying BA metal.

Boarding

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 1 of 46

If you haven’t been through Heathrow then it’s  a bit different than other airports. You will actually go through security screening again at the gate. So, it’s best to arrive a little earlier than usual. We couldn’t have timed this any better. We arrived and within 60 seconds of getting past security they called for the business class to board. As a result were amongst the first to board. WOOT WOOT

The plane feels so new

Screen Shot 2016-08-02 at 3.14.28 PM

It feels like a brand new plane. Our security cards were updated in July and I know that American is introducing newer versions of the 777-200 retrofit at some point, but this plane seemed fresh.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 2 of 46
view of the forward business class cabin
American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 6 of 46
view of the 2nd row
American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 4 of 46
top view
American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 28 of 46
very standard amenity kit

Unfortunately this crew wasn’t as thrilled to see Miles as some others

I dunno, I guess a smiling, quirky, lovable stuffed Monkey who travels the world doesn’t float some people’s boats. To this point, I’ve actually received quite a few hateful comments on my posts…if you’d like to share those on this one you’re more than welcome. I live in America and there is free speech. There’s also a spam folder where you will end up.

If you have constructive criticism, questions, like Miles, or want to see more things, please tell us – We love to interact with readers annnnddd Back to the Review:

The crew was very crabby. Almost immediately after Miles plopped down he requested that I take a few pics of him. Some crew get weirded out by pictures, and it’s totally up to them whether or not they are allowed on the flights ( even tho American loves it when you post your experiences online) and they just recently called Miles out on twitter for his photo shoot with the Best Flight attendant ever….it’s still their call. I thought maybe they would tell me and him to put the camera down. They didn’t. Instead they were just kind of passive aggressive towards me for the remainder of the flight.

The Seat

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 33 of 46

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 5 of 46

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 8 of 46

I’ve read a lot about the seat: It being much narrower, that the other person in the row can feel when you move, and that it’s inferior to the 777-300ER reverse herringbone design. While it is narrower and I guess would say it’s inferior to the 777-300ER business class, it’s still a fantastic product. The 777-300ER is a bigger plane, but the 2 cabin design of the 777-200 is a direction I think AA will ultimately take. I couldn’t feel when anyone was moving within the center seating structure of the plane. As you can see in the bottom picture, the ottoman doesn’t allow much room for your feet, or any place to stow your bag.

The overall function of this seat was better and worse in some ways.

I found the controls to be really cool. I liked the touch screen seating controls, but until I figured them out, thought they were a little hard to understand. Once I “teched” up and understood each function, I thought it made the overall seat much sexier and streamlined.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 10 of 46 American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 9 of 46

 

The IFE was integrated very well. On the 777-300ER the A321T the headphone jacks aren’t the most ergonomic. These however, were fantastically placed and even made using your personal headphones quiet easy by having two useable audio jacks.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 34 of 46

Where my BOSE AT?!?!

The only weird thing was that they waited til we were airborne and seat belt sign had been turned off to even distribute the headphones. WHAT?!?! We were on the ground for 45 mins, and then another 30 in the air. We just twiddled our thumbs because unless you had your own headphones you couldn’t watch anything. That’s a first. They even collected the headphones with over an hour of flight left. It’s stuff like that that I think this crew did to make their lives easier than to really enhance the experience for the passenger.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 32 of 46

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 40 of 46
American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 14 of 46

Wifi:

Advertised but never worked. I tried multiple times through the flight to login and it just didn’t work. The guy sitting in row 2 asked and the flight attendant just said…if you’ve tried a few times and it’s not working…It’s not working. I was planning on sleeping most of the flight anyways, but I was kind of shocked she didn’t tell him to try a couple more times and if it was still giving him difficulty she would reboot. Instead…she just couldn’t be bothered.

Power

The plugins for USB and powercords were very useful. I ultimately stored my iphone here and let it charge up. 

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 13 of 46

I found a very well placed storage slot next to the bed for my wallet. Made it feel super secure. It’s these seat design aspects that I found to be very thoughtful and useful. It also shows how much design has progressed since the Air Berlin cabin was designed. That left very little space that the passenger could use for their things. Not that this had an abundance of space, but it had enough for the essentials. United Global First still ranks best as far as storage is concerned.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 30 of 46
space to the right of the seat
American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 29 of 46
space to the left

The most annoying part of the seat was the middle partition. I was traveling with my girlfriend and we couldn’t get it down. The flight crew told us that it was broken. It either had to stay up or down, but that they couldn’t fix it at all. HUGE bummer, because we picked these seats so we could experience the flight and cabin together. I think we both would have picked alternate seats had we known this in advance…

Dining

Not a great start

I didn’t get a check-in reminder and was completely in an out of body experience ( I flew thru Germany to London on saturday for a wedding sunday, then up at 5am the next day to fly back to LAX) so I didn’t request a meal. The first air hostess came by and gave us our headphones and then about 10 mins later stopped to ask my dinner request. Well Miles and I eat no meat, only fish and veggies. So I started to order an express meal with the pasta. She just said Wait! So I stopped. She then looked down and said I can’t take your order now, I have to start at the back and work my way forward. I said ok, well I mean you’re heee – and she was off. Just like that. Not a big deal, but she’d been curt with me since boarding.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It got worse

When she came back she told me that all they had left was Beef. I must have had a stunned look on my face, because she said, ” Beef. That’s all we have left. Do you want it?” I said, “well the thing is is that I just want the express meal and I don’t eat meat, just fish and veggies.” Her reply, ” you know you can order food ahead of time and you should have done that cause all we have left is the beef.” I kind of nodded, just thinking ok…well I guess I’ll just have some snacks and then sleep. I then ordered the express meal from her and said I’ll just have the salad then and cheese and crackers.

At this point, my girlfriend seated next to me in 1D was getting service from her flight attendant. She said, my boyfriend doesn’t eat meat and was told that you only have beef left. She looked at her kind of strangely…well I have chicken and fish left. We divvy up the meals, would he like the fish? Yes, he would.

Hmmmmm….did I do something?

So…was my flight attendant out to get me? At best I would say that she just didn’t want to be bothered to go and ask her coworkers if other meals were available, and at worst – she didn’t like me for some reason. In fact, up to this point I hadn’t even received a drink other than my pre-flight drink. I kinda looked around and realized that some on my side of the plane had received a pre-meal drink and others hadn’t. Was it just limp service, or was she playing favorites? Regardless my fish ultimately ended up coming.

As did a fruit and prosciutto plate.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 41 of 46
Etude Pinot Noir and warm nuts
American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 43 of 46
seared white halibut
American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 42 of 46
express meal and then the fish came

Express meal:

I have to say I really like it. I’ve only ordered the multi-course style before, but if you need to get to sleep and don’t care so much about getting ice cream…do the express meal. I was served my entire meal and was pretty much done eating it by the time the lady across from me got her first course. All in all, I’d say I finished a solid 45mins to an hour ahead of the multi-course passengers. Crucial sleep time.

Snacks laid out mid flight

Just like on the 777-300ER they lay out snacks behind the the galley in a separate hallway.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 44 of 46
snacks, water, and desserts
American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 45 of 46
fruit and sweets

The Bed

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 12 of 46

The bed was pretty comfy. It’s certainly narrower than the business class on the 777-300ER, but I found it comfortable enough to pass out pretty quickly. It’s also a little shorter, but at 6′ I could fully stretch out my feet and be fine. I did make use of the headrest controls and slid them to their top position. My shoulders did hit the sides when I slid all the way to the top, but once on my side…everything was fine. I can see where people complain that it’s not as good a seat as the reverse herringbone 777-300, but comparing it to the flight I just had on Air Berlin…it’s incred. I would advise against sitting in this row because you look almost straight at the person in 1J. The other rows however seemed to be staggered more to avoid this awkwardness.

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 17 of 46

After sleeping a solid 6 hours I woke up for a light snack.

Light Meal:

American Airlines Business Class 777-200 London to Chicago - 46 of 46

The best part of the light snack was the chocolate mousse and the apple juice. Other than that…it was one of the AA’s weakest dishes I’ve had in a while.

Overall

Hard Product

Two negative things stuck out to me. The partition didn’t move and the wifi never worked. Both of these are reasons passengers would opt to fly this plane and this configuration over a competitor. Annoying that they didn’t work.

This is a massive improvement on the old 777-200. Even though I flew that in Flagship First I would take business clas on this newly redesigned seat and cabin any day. It’s sleek, comfortable, and is light years ahead of that product. In terms of comparing it to the 777-300ER business class…it doesn’t quite measure up. But I did really like this cabin and this product. I didn’t notice it being overly cramped like some people have remarked, and while my seat rocked a bit, I couldn’t feel my girlfriend move around in her seat at all. In searching for award tickets I find this plane to be available on more routes than the Flagship 777-300ER and I would happily fly on this plane without complaint.

Soft Product

This is the first time I’ve been pretty disappointed with AA and their staff. This entire year I’ve had really excellent service and treatment. This flight, for whatever reason, failed. It was pretty consistent from all the staff but maybe one lady ( Asian American if someone from AA is reading) that did anything but go through the motions. There as one staff member in particular that was at best unpleasant. I write this off to a bad experience, as so much of my time with AA this year has been great. With that said…when you’re spending quite a bit of money to fly business and the service is sour…it leaves quite an impression. It’s kind of like every time something goes well a penny is added to the consumer experience bank, and when it goes wrong a quarter is withdrawn. I’m on track to hit Executive Platinum this year, but with recent devaluations and if I have many more experiences like this…I’ll certainly be thinking of switching loyalty.

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

a blue credit card with lines and symbols

Learn More

 Affiliate link 

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 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 Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

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.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

16 Comments

  • […] American Airlines Business Class 777-200 Retrofit – AA wins product ( unless throne then tie), Swiss Service […]

  • […] enjoyed this cabin from London to Chicago last year, but you can kick back and relax on a domestic flight. It operates consistently between […]

  • […] I did on the 777-200 from LHR to ORD – only 57,500 miles or […]

  • […] American Air Business Class 777-200 LHR – ORD […]

  • […] the following day and then on Monday morning we routed through Dublin so that we could nab a great business class deal and fly on American’s 777-200. All in all, it was awesome!!! In order to nab that great business class deal, we had to position […]

  • […] the end I got to experience AA’s new 777-200 lie flat business class seat and Air Berlin’s Business class on the way out. Totally worth […]

  • Don L August 4, 2016

    Do you like, seriously, ever wash that stuffed toy, as put it in the washing machine, hot water and laundry detergent with an extra rinse and spin? I’d imagine after hauling that thing around it’d be pretty soaked with all manner of bacteria. Other than that, the report re: the cabin matron convinces me why it’s best to fly select Asian carriers instead. I’ll tell you one of my experiences on United economy plus: Middle-age matron asks ‘chicken or beef’, I ask ‘what kind of beef?’ Matron replies sarcastically ‘dead’. No joke. That’s the level of cretins that US carriers hire, and never, ever fire. I’ve had poor AA service in their int’l F cabin as well. So at least Miles doesn’t give lip.

    • JBL December 4, 2017

      I don’t understand US flight attendants. At best they are passive-aggressive, at worst they are aggressively hostile. And I say this as a gay man myself, but the worst offenders (in terms of viciousness, meanness, rudeness) are the gay male FAs. If you dislike humanity SO much, why do you pick a job that involves being around humans??? SMH.

  • Leo August 4, 2016

    Big Miles fan here! I think this blog is better for the humour – it’s a bit of a light relief on Boarding Area and Prior2Boarding. Go Miles! Also aren’t people missing the point – it’s Miles’ blog….
    Good to see BA gave you a better reception

    • Miles August 4, 2016

      woot woot! that’s our goal – fun, light, and hopefully informative =) thanks Leo!

  • Per Hour August 3, 2016

    Alright dude, I’ll bite. After all it’s a slow summer afternoon and I’m reading a blog with pictures of a stuffed monkey. That said, I’ve actually read a number of your reviews and they’re better than about 95% of the garbage on Prior2Boarding and BoardingArea (and whatever the hell TravelUpdate is). But the monkey isn’t working for me. I get it – his name is Miles and this is a miles blog. But it completely undermines the quality of both your writing and your photography – which, again, is better than 95% of the other blogs on these networks. I’m not quite sure what your end game is, but it seems to me that the very few people who have built something successful out of these blogs do so by promoting themselves, not a stuffed animal. From your bio, I guess you have another career going in the entertainment business and this is all just for fun. Which is totally fine, but I really think you’re selling yourself short with the monkey shtick. Just 2-cents from an anonymous voice out in the inter-webs.

    • Miles August 4, 2016

      Per Hour – thanks for enjoying the photos, writing, and the overall feedback! Our goal is to provide readers with something different, fun, light, and humorous. We get that not everyone is going to be a fan at first, but like beer – we can be an acquired taste. Hopefully you’ll continue to read as our readers are important, but we pride ourselves on being a bit quirky and different.

  • Marie August 3, 2016

    I happen to like Miles.

  • Mike August 2, 2016

    Report would be better if it wasn’t for the monkey aspect. The whole monkey thing is rather erelovent. Good report though.

    • Miles August 2, 2016

      thanks for the feedback! I think you and the flight attendants would get along great…they didn’t really get Miles either 😉

Leave a Reply to Miles Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.