I'm sketching out a DONE4 and was wondering about the travel class for flights between the mainland US and Puerto Rico and mainland US and Aruba.

For the purposes of the xONEx ticket, is Puerto Rico considered to be part of the US -- that is, am I entitled to book in A on a 2-class plane between JFK and SJU?

If I use Aruba (AUA) instead, it looks pretty certain that I would not be entitled to sit in F. Is that the experience of those who have flown the route

With DONEx all Caribbean flights will book in to D = Business Class. There's no First Class available on AA to either destination you mentioned. For the xONEx purposes The Caribbean is part of N.A.

DONEx will book in to "F" only on those 2-class intra-US (continental) AA flights with F and Y cabins offered.

Excellent, thanks -- I shoulda checked first to see if the Carib flights were F/Y or C/Y.

One of my little "secrets" for maximizing mileage in North America is to take the JFK-BGI or JFK-AUA flights. JFK-BGI is just over 2000 miles and JFK-AUA is just over 1900 miles.

At times, JFK-BGI operates with a 763.

Never done it. How easy is the turnaround?

Not sure if the times have changed, but when I last did it at BGI, it was approximately four hours (the a/c from JFK continued to MIA and the inbound MIA a/c continued to JFK).

Plenty of time and I was able to get into the (not too impressive) BA lounge.

I flew JFK-BGI-JFK on a DONE4 last December, but I stayed a few days so I cannot comment on turnaround. I figure though that if you don't have any checked luggage it shouldn't be much of a problem, as I got through immigration quickly. Waiting for the bag took a bit longer, but not as long as in emerging markets airports (like LHR). Of course, my outbound flight was delayed by six hours due to some defective part or other. Anyway, even with checked luggage I think you can make the turnaround unless you one those 747 came in just before you.

A little OT but can't resist: how do you rate (1-10) your stay? if you had to fly JFK-BGI-JFK again...would you repeat the stay or go for a fast turnaround? TIA.

Well, I am not sure I'd want to spend more time there again. On the other hand, I don't regret having been there, and on balance I think I would recommend spending a few days in Barbados if you've never been there. Get a nice hotel, do sightseeing tours into the center of the island, go on a cruise, get some great food... but in the end it's still a third world beach-and-sun place with some frills. It was nice to get some warm sunshine after freezing in New York, but I thought the entire Caribbean "relax mon" attitude was a little too pervasive. As I said, I certainly don't regret having stayed there, but then again, I also like to try things at least once. Now there are other places higher on the priority list for me to visit.

On the 1-10 scale, I'd rate it a 5.