wally34949

I read on a recent flight that AA is switching to new lie-flat seats in Business Class International. According to a check on www.kayak.com on flights from Miami to Barcelona, leaving on June 6 and returning on July 3, AA is $5212, BA is 3733, Continental is $4435, Lufthansa is $2594, Swiss is $2537 and Delta is 2457.

I was very happy with BA's Business Class. Is American's worth the extra $1,479? Lufthansa is half the price. Any suggestions?

Gardyloo

AA has only redone one plane with the new J seats so far; nobody really knows what the rollout schedule is, or if the new seats will be the same on the 777s as on the (initial refit) 767s. So forecasting next year is a total crapshoot.

Iberia will probably not have loaded their fares/schedules for next year yet, so I'd wait for them to do so. IB's new biz plus seats are (reportedly) the best of the bunch and IB usually has the cheapest J fares over the pond, especially to Spain (duh).

We're going to be riding IB J MAD-JNB in a couple of weeks, then LX J JNB-ZRH, so I'll report back on the seats/service.

I find BA's J seats to be too short and too narrow for overnight flights and I <i>really</i> don't like them if you're in the window seat, need to go walkies and Mr/Ms Aisle is sleeping. Time for gymnastics training.

Or... wait... was your post merely a swipe at AA because of the fare differential? Don't we have a whole separate forum for AA-bashing?

wally34949

Me, bash American--my buddy? Never. I've got 78,000 miles with their FF program. I even have their credit card. If only they would take some of my ideas seriously, they could kill the competition and then I'd be happy and BA, Southwest and Jet Blue would be sad.

Free wine with meals on international flights, fasten seat belt signs that don't stay on for 9 hours straight and robots (I mean flight attendants) that actually have been programmed to smile.

Now, how much does that really cost?

Underhill

I flew in Lufthansa business class last December after an initial flight with Austrian Airlines, and the difference was amazing. Lufthansa feels more like a super-economy class.

Carrybean

Wally, why not use some miles, get a cheap coach ticket on AA &amp; fly business?

P_M

Hey wally, some posters on another thread have found a way to sneak booze on the plane, even despite the new rules about liquids. When I read that thread I immediately thought of you. Check it out:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34852823

Cheers.

wally34949

By mid October, I should have close to 90,000 miles with AA and 50,000 with BA. I was planning to use the AA miles for a flight to Hawaii. However, if I could pick up a business ticket with AA for 90,000 I would consider that. However, on the dates I checked, AA wanted 180,000 miles for a business ticket.

I will check out that link.

AAFrequentFlyer

<b>wally</b>,

if you only spend less time here talking about free wines and more time actually researching how far your AA miles could go, you might have learned that the miles can go pretty far:

130K AA miles for the following award -

OCT18 - TPA-MIA-LIM - AA F and LAN J
OCT23 - LIM-MIA - LAN J
MAR06 - MIA-YYZ-LHR-WAW - AA F and BA J
MAR21 - WAW-LHR-MAN - BA J and Y
MAR27 - MAN-ORD - AA J
MAR29 - ORD-SFO* - AA F
APR01 - SFO-MIA-TPA* - AA F

I have to buy a seperate R/T MIA-TPA to break up the trip - $178 (Returning to TPA on OCT23 and getting back to MIA to start the European trip on MAR6) due to the OneWorld rules, I couldn't make a stopover in the originating city.

and the taxes are ~$200 for the award ticket.

In your opinion what's better, a 90K miles for a J seat for a simple R/T to Europe or 130K miles for a J seat to South America, Europe and US west coast?


*, btw, I may just buy another R/T ORD-TPA and change the dates and extend my west coast visit. Date changes are allowed and are free as long as there is award availibility.

AAFrequentFlyer

btw <b>wally</b>,

if you were willing to fly to Madrid instead of Barcelona, you could save yourself 10K miles and fly in J on BA and Iberia with a OW award. Little more flying, but the entire time some of the best wines would be free flowing.....

wally34949

Thanks for the tip. I will keep that in mind. I'm glad I don't own one of those duty free stores in the airport past security. How are they paying the bills--not being able to sell wine?