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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
and the seatmap which shows the new cabins
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.
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:
or you may get this
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
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.
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.
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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