This is my first post. I have been lurking for a while. I need help with travel to Ireland using miles and I would also like to contribute when I can. I have learned valuable info from Flyertalk. Thank you!

I travel occasionally for pleasure and business but not enough to earn statis with any airline. I own a small business and use c/cs for $10,000-15,000/month.

My goal is to accumulate enough miles and points to fly my son and I to Ireland first class on AA or UA and to stay at the Weston in Dublin on SPG points. I stayed there a couple of years ago for 10 nights on points and the location is great! I have checked both airlines for flights and don't know which airline to work on miles. We want the flat-bed (no angled seats). We could fly into LHR on British Airways but I don't like not having a connecting flight to DUB. I haven't been able to find flights to Ireland with first class envoy seats.

I would appreciate your help!

Please explain first more clearly what kind of beds you want. Flat and horizontal are two different things. Think of a wooden board. It stays flat whether you stand it up on edge, put it on the floor, or hold it at an angle. AA has flat beds at about a 160 degree angle (ie, not horiztonal, but flat) on all their planes that do their ORD-DUB flights. Is that acceptable to you or not? (If not, that would seem to take AA planes out of the picture. And Aer Lingus has even less-flat seats IIRC. So I'm not sure what airline, if any, has the seats you want on flights to DUB.)

US-Ireland is not a huge business market (especially since the downturn, which has undone the "Irish Tiger" economy there). And it's too heavily a leisure market. So no ailrine gives a priority to putting their best seats on flights to Ireland. That's why only an ailrine that has the kind of seats you want on every international plane, and happens to fly to Ireland, will have the kind of seat you want all the way to Ireland.

Meanwhile, have you checked the "fuel" surcharge fees on BA flights across the Atlantic? They are often so high (many many hundreds of dollars per ticket) that it costs almost as much to use miles on BA as just to purchase the ticket outright! You thus pay a whole lot to have the nicer BA planes across the sea compared to AA planes (which have low fees).

Btw, you haven't explained where you're located (ie, what airport you'd be starting out from).

The Westin is simple; that's an SPG hotel, so you've got to put enough spend on the SPG Amex to get those points. (And that means not relying on the SPG Amex for the airline miles, unless you can get so many points that you have enough SPG points both for the Westin and for transferring to the airline for the flights. And, btw, SPG does not work well for UA, since it loses half the value in that SPG-UA transfer compared to SPG-other airlines.)

Welcome to Flyertalk. AA offers international first class only on 777 aircraft, and to my knowledge they only use these (in Europe) on flights to LHR. The flight from ORD to DUB is operated with a 767 which offers business class, and the seats are not flat-beds.

We want the 180 degree horiztonal. I have spent so much time looking and did notice the AA 777 into LHR. I just though maybe I was missing something. Do you know if UA has a connecting flight from LHR to DUB? Maybe on a partner airline? if not, I'm thinking it might be better to fly back to LHR the day before our flight home. I don't like the stress of getting thru LHR to catch that flight without having them connected.

Assuming you're not doing this until next year, if you do an AA 777 to LHR, you will likely get one of the new 777-300ER jets which they're starting to take delivery on in just a few months. This would allow you to fly in either First or Business and have a fully lie-flat seat on brand new equipment.

You can see the new interiors here:

http://www.aa.com/i18n/utility/boein...L&title=fly777

Also, British Airways is either in the process of, or has already, acquired BMI which offers flights from LHR to DUB, so you should be able to connect on a single OneWorld itinerary.

I live in the middle of nowhere(Kansas). I would either fly out on AA which is our only airline or drive/Amtrak to MCI. AA flies to Dallas direct from here. I don't mind not having direct flights but want the 180 degree seats at least going.

Yes, I'm planning this trip for next year. I have been using my two SPG c/cs for spend to use either at the Weston or to transfer to AA but would start using United Explorer card if UA works better for flights. I have a long way to go! Right now I have the following:
SPG- 85,000 pts
UA- 130,000 miles
AA- 90,000 miles
Amtrak- 33,000 pts

You still haven't told us what airport you'll be flying out of!

That's important, because so far AA has announced those planes with truly-horizontal seats only from some of the airports they fly to LHR from. (And those include JFK, which is so close to LHR, you barely have time to sleep, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend focusing on it if you don't live anywhere near, if sleep is your #1 consideration.)

By the way, are you aware, speaking of JFK-LHR, that AA flies daytime flights on that route, and UA flies daytime flights on EWR-LHR? In that case, who needs to sleep, and in that case, who cares whether the seats are horizontal?

But a daytime flight from New York may be impractical if you live on the west coast. So again, where are you based???

If it were me I'd do MCI-EWR-DUB in Business and avoid connecting via LHR on the return as you get to clear Customs and Immigration in Dublin which makes transiting EWR a breeze.
The seats on the 752 are lie flat and the service is good.

I edited my post above with my home base info. I would like the experience of first class (sorry, I don't know all the flying lingo) but also, I have a really bad back and have a problem sitting even for a couple of hrs. Domestically, I make it. But for a flight more than 2 or 3 hrs, it would be tough. Most of my flight experience has been in coach so maybe that's the problem!

Is MCI-EWR-DUB a UA flight? I will ck out the 752! Or.... It would be awesome to fly BMI

Oh, yes, the difference between the typical coach seat and even the typical domestic first class seat in comfort is generally high. And the difference between the typical coach seat (domestic or international) and any seat (no matter how "non-horizontal") designed for international business/first class cabin use is astounding.

But given all you just added, here's another option you might want to look into (if you can afford the extra time it takes): Fly into LHR, then use a combination of trains and boats to get to DUB. (Someone must run boats between the UK main island and the Irish island, no?) On both trains and boats, you can stand up and walk around a lot easier than on planes.

United serves Ireland with 757-200 aircraft configured with a fully flat seat. They have for a few years now (if you count the CO-operated version from prior to the merger). It is business class, not first class, but if what you want is the fully flat bed then that's the best option IMO.

Post # 6 @12:44

But given all you just added, here's another option you might want to look into (if you can afford the extra time it takes): Fly into LHR, then use a combination of trains and boats to get to DUB. (Someone must run boats between the UK main island and the Irish island, no?) On both trains and boats, you can stand up and walk around a lot easier than on planes.[/QUOTE]

Flying into LHR sometimes raises the prices I have found. Your suggestion about boats between the UK and Ireland is a good one, last time I took one it was from Holyhead (N. Wales) to Dunlerie (IRE) with a train available in both directions.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

AA has been flying its three-class 777 from DFW to MAD. If AA is still using this aircraft on the DFW-MAD route when the OP wants to fly, then XXX-DFW-MAD-DUB might be possible, with the last leg flown on Iberia's Air Nostrum subsidiary.