Originally Posted by
SF Traveler
I'm on the same flight in F in a few days and am having the same issue. I called the ExPlat line about something else and happened to ask about this to see if the agent could reserve the meal for me. He asked three people for assistance and no one could do it. No one had received the question before, but no one could help. Apparently it just lets you reserve the first meal. On overnight flights it lets you reserve the dinner but not the next morning's breakfast, and on long flights beginning in the morning, it lets you reserve breakfast but not lunch. I hope that those AA employees monitoring social media will pick up on this glitch.
In the vast majority of cases, the first meal after takeoff is the "main" meal service, while the second (and third, if applicable) services are considered "follow-on" meals.
It sounds like the daytime GRU-JFK is an unusual case, in which the typical South America meal service (Dinner + Breakfast) is reversed (Breakfast + Dinner) (as they do when the red-eyes are delayed and depart the following morning).
DEL-ORD was another unusual case, given the extremely late departure time around 1am local time. IIRC, there was a light meal after takeoff, then a mid-flight snack, and then a full Brunch service prior to arrival (at 5am). God that was a painful flight!