Hello! I am flying from Dublin to LA next July and about to book my flights. I have a lot of options on routing and ideally need to stop over in the East Coast in order to maximize the points for my BA status.

I am travelling in international business/domestic first and I would ideally like to layover in PHL (and fly DUB-PHL on A330) - my concern is that the PHL-LAX leg would be on an ex-US A321 and I have heard bad things about this aircraft. Can anybody provide feedback as to whether this is significantly worse than an AA A321 2 class (which I have flown before from LAX-MIA and was very happy with).

Is it bad enough to warrant travelling DUB-JFK on the 757 and then JFK-LAX on A321 transcon in J?

Thanks!