It is solely been just a few days since American Airways launched the first real-life images of its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners that includes its novel Flagship Suites idea. Now, these seats are on sale — and we’re seeing some fairly attractive award house in its new business-class cabin for as little as 55,000 miles one-way.
As TPG reported final week, American will launch service from Chicago’s O’Hare Worldwide Airport (ORD) to London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) starting June 5. On Aug. 6, the airline will add service from Philadelphia Worldwide Airport (PHL) to LHR.
American will even debut the jet — and the Flagship Suites idea — on its flights between Dallas Fort Price Worldwide Airport (DFW) and Brisbane, Australia, come late October.
Excessive demand for American Airways’ new Flagship Suites
As you would possibly anticipate, these planes — and particularly the brand new suites, full with American’s first-ever sliding privateness doorways — are in excessive demand.
Coach seats on the June 5 inaugural worldwide flight from O’Hare to Heathrow are already bought out, per American’s reserving platform. Should you decide to guide one of many snazzy new suites, it should run you north of $6,000.
Utilizing AAdvantage miles does not look way more interesting, at practically 300,000 miles one-way. In response to TPG’s Might 2025 valuations, American miles are value 1.65 cents every. Whereas this award provides you a powerful redemption worth of two cents per mile, not many individuals might have 300,000 AA miles of their account.
And whereas there’s loads of summer season financial system award house by means of AAdvantage at 27,000 miles one-way, business-class redemptions look fairly expensive by means of June and July, with award tickets working north of 100,000 miles and even 200,000 miles, in some circumstances.
Be aware that premium financial system tickets for 47,000 American miles is a extremely good award deal, providing you with a worth of about 8.6 cents per mile. Nevertheless, it’s possible you’ll need to maintain off on reserving these premium financial system seats when you possibly can guide an expensive business-class seat for only a few extra miles.
Ebook American Flagship Suites by means of Alaska Mileage Plan
However there’s an attractive work-around: Ebook by means of one among American’s Oneworld alliance companions — particularly, Alaska Airways’ Mileage Plan program.
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As View from the Wing’s Gary Leff was the first to report, Alaska has opened up new Flagship Suite award redemptions beginning at simply 55,000 miles one-way (plus taxes and costs). Alaska miles are value 1.5 cents apiece, per our Might 2025 valuations. Due to this fact, this redemption would offer you a worth of 11 cents per mile. That’s a tremendous deal!
Whereas there is not award house accessible day-after-day this summer season, it is not too tough to seek out.
To guide a Flagship Suite utilizing Alaska miles, you may need to be sure to’re selecting a flight route that operates utilizing the brand new airplane. American designates its new 787-9s with the Flagship Suites (a whopping 51 of them, to be exact) as its “787-9P.”
In American’s reserving channels, search for flights that say “78P,” like on this instance for an ORD-LHR flight for July 18.
Reserving this flight by means of American for a business-class seat just isn’t a nasty deal (I’ve seen a lot worse). However you could possibly be losing beneficial reward miles.
Should you simply go over to Alaska’s web site and run an award search for a similar flight, you may discover it accessible (on this case) for 55,000 miles plus $19 in taxes and costs.
PHL-LHR
Here is an instance for the Philly flight on the brand new 787-9P on Aug. 13.
There’s really some fairly first rate August award house on this route by means of AAdvantage at 62,000 miles one-way.
However once more, you may get it for 55,000 Alaska miles as a substitute.
Keep in mind, even when you do not have a stash of Alaska miles sitting round, you possibly can — no less than for now — switch American Categorical Membership Rewards factors to its new sister airline, Hawaiian Airways, after which transfer these miles to Alaska (however it’s possible you’ll need to act quickly). Be aware that Amex does cost a price (as much as $99) to switch factors to HawaiianMiles.
Additionally, in case you are a Bilt Rewards member, you possibly can switch Bilt Factors at a 1:1 ratio to Alaska Mileage Plan.
Should you’re not discovering appropriate award house by means of American or Alaska, you possibly can all the time strive looking out by means of Oneworld alliance companions, such because the handful of carriers that use Avios as their award foreign money (comparable to British Airways, Iberia, Qatar Airways and Finnair) — or American’s Australian accomplice, Qantas.
You may as well use a third-party instrument like Seats.aero, Level.me or Roame.journey to help you in trying to find award house. Simply triple-check the plane kind on the route. It is doable a third-party instrument or accomplice (comparable to Alaska) will solely record the plane kind because the “787-9” — you may need to make sure that it is the “787-9P” or “78P” configuration.
As talked about, American’s new Dreamliners with the brand new configuration have 51 business-class suites, versus 30 on its current 787-9s.
