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

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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.