Originally Posted by
eddieras
OK guys - i need some assistance. I'm planning a once in a lifetime trip to Italy for my elderly aunt next September. She will be 4 weeks shy of her 86th birthday at that time. She really wants to fly business class to Rome, economy is fine coming home. I have the miles with AA,but of course finding seats with real lie flat suites is not an easy chore as we all know. Plus she really wants the private pods and i'm not sure about the refurbbed 777-200s. A Change of plane is fine for us. I did just find JFK to LHR on the new 77W and thought i'd grab it taking advantage of the 5 day hold. I have not looked for connections to JFK or LHR to FCO yet, but have read here to grab the transatlantic leg first. (i'm in chicago, she's in Miami). Other issue is the calendar only goes out to Sept 7. What's my best course of action here? Find all the connecting flights and then call AA? I know you can change Award flights as long as origin and departure doesn't change, but i assume that forces me into connecting thru London and Back to JFK as the calendar opens up more dates - we are aiming for two weeks so return around Sept 19. Any help, advice tips would be greatly appreciated!!
I would book the outbound now since it seems you have pretty specific requirements for the outbound, and the seats are available. They may not be available in a few weeks when the schedule opens up for the dates you want to return. If you wanted everything on one PNR, you could book the return for Sep 7 now and then in a few weeks, change the date of your return for no charge. You could even change your routing, as long as your origin and destination remain the same and you aren't changing from an all-AA award to a Partner award.
I would perhaps caution you on routing through JFK, as you will likely have to switch airports (this is maybe less of a problem for MIA, but there are not many flights from ORD to JFK). Both DFW and MIA have flights to LHR on the 77W. I might also look into Iberia from MIA through Madrid (just make sure you're on an A330 for the newest business class, although the old business is lie-flat too, except for the last row).