In my experience, your story is painfully familiar. I have had endless bad experiences in domestic first and business class (not to mention coach). I faced no one to check in Business or First at LAX for a red-eye flight (and a completely unapologetic agent on the coach line). Then there was the gate agent at SFO who would when asked if there were available Business seats (I was holding a UA Business ticket and was trying to get on an AA flight with friends), barely paused his conversation with a fellow employee to put me in a coach seat for the Business class fare (with no verbal communication until I pointed out the fact that I did not get a Business seat -- at which point he snorted and said, "THATS not going to happen! Its sold out." I returned to UA where I had a Business seat reserved. There was the "don't know, don't care"-equivalent response I got at LAX when I asked if my connecting flight at ORD was flying to IND (that was New Year's weekend 1998 -- you know how that turned out -- I spent 6 hours on a bus from ORD to IND in a snow storm -- they had to be able to find that out in advance since the bus was waiting. There was the last straw IND to LAX where I cashed in AAdvantage Miles for a first class seat IND TO LAX -- regional jet IND to ORD, then had to RUN (litterally) from the far end of ORD to catch my LAX flight -- breathless, I ran on to the plane into my seat (1D). Crew couldn't have cared less about the ordeal -- no apology, no offer of water, nothing. The service on the flight was literally coach food on nicer plates -- no movie and I think I saw the FA 2x the whole flight. The bulkhead in front of me was worn and the carpeting pilling into the big fluff balls. I vowed never again -- and I have stuck to that for the most part. The service in coach was even worse, from the FA on an JFK to SJU flight that argued that my low-carb meal (pasta, rice, and a nice roll) really was a low carb meal b/c "that's what the label says." When I finally went to the galley in the back when the cart reached it and asked for regular meal. I was told that it was already thrown away (again barely interrupting a conversation with another FA) -- obviously not true. I asked to see the pursor and was told that she was busy (never did show up). On another flight, my girlfriend was told that no, she could not have any water until the beverage service started on a coach flight from LAX to EWR (I only found out later -- would have gone ballistic). I HATE AA for the complete lack of service and even more for the complete lack of trying. The only decent in-flight domestic service I have found on AA is on flights with 3 classes of service -- and then the above illustrates that that is not assured. The FAs seem to have the attitude that they are running a utility -- virtually "go fly someone else if you don't like it." This was a long vent, but believe it or not, I could go on and on about bad service I have received on AA in every class of service.