Between May 5 and July 4 there are six or more first class award seats available most dates from Miami to Milan on American Airlines.
This makes sense. American has made first class award space available in the months leading up to a change of aircraft away from an old configuration Boeing 777-200 (which offers first class) to either a reconfigured plane or another aircraft type with no first class cabin. American is switching this flight from a 777-200 to a Boeing 767-300.
I really like American’s old first class, as dated as it is. There are lots of seats so it used to be easy to get. There’s plenty of space though not much privacy. It swivels.
They offer pajamas and travel comes with Flagship lounge access and dining if you’re flying from or through an airport which offers it. Flagship check-in as well. (While there’s no flagship lounge or dining in Miami at this point, but if you originate in New York, LA, Chicago or Dallas you’ll have an extra amenity.)
The only real risk is that American swaps the aircraft before they’re currently planning to do so. Normally I wouldn’t much mind — for instance I was scheduled to fly old first class Dallas – Paris and they swapped the plane early for a Boeing 787-9. That just meant I got miles back. But in this case I’m not a fan of the business class seat on the 767. It’s four-across, fully flat with direct aisle access but the Thompson Vantage seats are narrow.
Oddly this availability is one way only, there’s not first class availability for Milan to Miami so you’ll need to find a different way back to the States.
(HT: les zuckerman)
I am on that flight next week and it is a 767.
This flight is usually a 767, probably only seasonally adjusted to 777.
Yesterday ExpertFlyer notified me that my May flight on AA from DFW to AMS had an equipment change, from 767-300 to 777. The airline website continues to show no equipment change. Any idea why the discrepancy, maybe that AA is shuffling planes around on their TATL routes and someone got confused??
Just be careful that they don’t fill up the entire FC with cabin Saver awards, then EC to a plane with no FC, moving everyone to J with no notice. They did that with us 2 years ago, without telling us, and without refunding the extra miles. Luckily I found out on my own, and called to change to a route with FC, but the CSR said “sorry, no Saver availability on that route”. I demanded to talk with a supervisor, who allowed us to change to the route that now had FC. I’m AA Lifetime Gold, so whether or not they would have done that for someone who isn’t Lifetime Gold is an open question.
The fact that we have to have an alert about award availability at the Saver level is showing how far AA has fallen. Still waiting for Caribbean Saver levels in business to become available…..
EXP here. I hada booking in First class on an old 777 200 changed to 767 new config. It still said first class but the class was obviously business. Flew business. Complained. They said it was first class. No miles returned. Complained all the way to corporate they said they were willing to give me 15k “goodwill” miles for the confusion, never got the “goodwill” miles. Thanks AA
Are you sure it is not phantom availability. I didn’t think AA released multiple saver First long haul anymore.
Also can you backtrack and combine with BA or other oneworld carriers. For example could you do Miami to Milan to London to Amsterdam?? Just wondering if I can use this to book a trip to Europe.