Goin-2-AA

Ask your butt after ORD-DEL in Y.

JDiver

ORD-DEL in Y and you're not gonna be able to ask your butt anything for a few days - at least until it gets some feeling back. Ditto QF Y LAX-SYD, for instance.

pauleeepaul

Add the removal of the climb factor in J.

Traveling in a pair J is ok. Traveling solo, particularly on >8 hour flights, the difference is night and day. But if you ain't got the $ and/or your means of getting out of Y don't permit F (ie VIPs), J is not a bad place to be.

bbkenney

Wait.
If you don't upgrade to F you get second homes and finer wine? Well if that's true, of course never upgrade to F, but if you don't really get the homes and wine, the upgrade to AA F every chance you get!

JDiver

My take: if I am travelling a lengthy redeye, F makes a difference - big completely flat bed, more privacy, etc. Next day arrival, I am well rested and ready to hit the streets. On a lengthy daytime flight, I may take a nap at some point, but my intent is to remain awake and a full flat bed is not important.

Fly to Asia daytime flight or back from Europe, J is fine; fly back from Asia overnight or to Europe, the F bed is nice.

Service? For the redeye, I browse real food before flying, on the a/c I might have a glass of wine and the salad course, then zzzz. Who cares about service - I just want to be left alone, though if it is very good, I'll acknowledge it. For the daylight flight, gimme decent service and I will entertain myself - book, video, music, whatever - iPod and Kindle handle most of it.

ijgordon

Think of it this way -- Zone A on a 772 holds 16 Flagship Suites. It could alternatively hold 5 rows of 2-3-2 J (although I think the seats would have to go all the way back to door 2L -- where a closet/galley is currently -- to squeeze the 5 rows in at 60" of pitch, so let's say 4.5 rows to keep the comparison valid). That's 4.5 * 7 = 31.5 J seats. So F is roughly 2x the size as J.

I think it's pretty fair to say that a NGBC J seat provides more than twice the space of a coach seat. Nearly twice as much pitch and about 30% more width including the armrest console -- so about 2.5x the space of coach. And this ignores the law of diminishing returns. At some point, the extra space becomes "worth" less, though for sure that is a more subjective measure.

timxzl

Hi all,

I intend to redeem a first or business class ticket for my girlfriend from China to CMI in early August.

I can choose the PEK-ORD-CMI route, for which I can choose Business (55K miles) or First (67.5K miles). The departure date fits perfect with her schedule. But PEK is far from our home, so she needs to buy another domestic ticket from south China to PEK.

Or I can choose PVG-ORD-CMI, for which I can only choose First (67.5K miles). The only departure date is not perfect (will be 4 days before her intended departure date), but acceptable. PVG is near out home, so she only needs to drive there.

I cannot make a decision between PEK-ORD-CMI in business class and PVG-ORD-CMI in first class. Both are on 777s.

PEK-ORD-CMI in business class saves me some miles, and the departure date is perfect, but as I said PEK is far from our home, and I concern about the PEK airport issue: I'm afraid that AA cannot start to fly PEK-ORD in August, or even cancels PEK-ORD route.

PVG-ORD-CMI in first class costs me more miles, and the departure date is not very good, but PVG is near our home, and this route is more guaranteed to work out.

So I want to know if AA first class is way better than business class? If the first class worths the extra 12.5K miles, I may choose PVG-ORD-CMI in first class.

What's your opinion? Thank you very much!

FWAAA

Yes, First is much better than business, so I'd go with F everytime.

I value 12.5k miles at about a hundred dollars (since I bought a lot of them at that price last year). An upgrade from biz to F for $100? Jump on it in a heartbeat.

She'll have lots more privacy, nobody crawling over her to get out of their biz seat during the flight (nor will she have to crawl over someone to use the lav), much more personal space and more attentive service (IMO). Is that worth $100 worth of miles? It's easily worth two or three times that.

mvoight

How did you buy 12500 miles for $100?
For a trip of this distance, it is worth $100 more each way for First class.
It is even worth 12500 miles if you spent more than $100, or if you earned them normally. Why add another connection, and another airfare to the mix?
Take PVG

timxzl

Thanks! I find your advice quite convincing.

What do you think about the timing factor?

Departing from PVG means: Guaranteed trip, closer from our home, but not very good departure date (4 days earlier than the intended departure date).

Departing from PEK means: Risk of cancelled route (then, will have to book another ticket at sky high price because AA won't rebook an award seat for free), farther from our our home, but perfect departure date.

Thank you very much!

SFO777

If you really want to impress your girlfriend, what about CX? PVG-HKG-LAX/SFO/YYZ/JFK and then AA to ORD and CMI? It's the same 67.5K miles and she'll experience real First Class service, and no doubt show her appreciation.

AAExpDFW

You can always keep calling back over time and see if First opens up on a better departure date. You can change the date without any fees....

Paulchili

Book the First class from PVG. You can always change the date without a fee if it becomes available later (keep checking)

timxzl

Thanks all!

Now I made my decision to choose a first class PVG-ORD-CMI.

So the only issue remaining is about timing. I knew that I can change date without fees, but thank you all for your kind reminds. I check 5~6 times per day to see the available inventory during the past half month, and I think I'll keep doing so for quite a long time.

My concern: Since PEK-ORD route is in trouble, many pax may change to PVG-ORD, so AA may even not release more award inventories for this route. So I should grab the PVG-ORD-CMI first class with imperfect departure date anyway, and check if they will release some more inventories with perfect departure date.

Thank you all!

timxzl

Yes, impressing her is EXACTLY what I want.

I used Qantas to check if CX has award inventories for that departure date, and got nothing around whole month long range.

Should I use ExpertFlyer or KVS to double check? Or call AA directly?

Thanks!