Try American Airlines New 777 International Business Class Product For Coach Prices
American Airlines launched a new 777 business class product that’s supposed to be awesome not too long ago. I haven’t had the opportunity to experience it yet, but they’re supposed to be great. View From the Wing (probably the most knowledgable/experienced person on this subject) thinks it’s the best seat to fly in across the Atlantic.
So, why not fly it for a couple hundred bucks instead of thousands?
These planes aren’t the type you’re going to find on your typical flight in the domestic US. This is one of those scheduling quirks that you don’t see often. But on August 4th, American is flying a brand spanking new 777 from San Diego to JFK.
And, the business class cabin is loaded as coach seating. As of the writing of this post, business class can be had for $233 one-way on this flight. Look at all those business class seats available for an elite to select with their coach ticket.
Not too shabby to try out the new product on a transcontinental flight.
a/i $386.96 one-way. Now I have to let the wife know 😉
Wow. Price went up quick!
I just put a 24 hour hold at the $232.90 price
Bought one of the last four showing on the seat map. $293 lowest fare, did Choice Plus for 50% bonus for $44 more. That’s less than a penny a mile for the bonus miles. a/i $336.90.
Mike, I wish I had time in my schedule to come along. Decent price for a cross country and a very comfy seat!
Sorry if this is a dumb question… will they actually honor the business seating assignments? Or would they most likely throw you back into coach when they realize what has happened?
Not a dumb question. This isn’t a unique event. It’s somewhat rare, but I’ve sat in a business class seat sold as coach a handful of times. So, no, I can’t see any reason they wouldn’t honor it. It’s just a repositioning flight. My guess is you might not get a full meal service but I’m not sure.
Okay I just realized that they intentionally loaded the seats as coach (I think).
Am I correct in assuming that you’ll get Y service in the J seat?
Thanks!
Rich, my experience in the past when they load J as Y is that you don’t get the service, just the seat.
Bummer – I was hoping for J service too 🙁
Simon, it’s possible, but I think unlikely.
I will let you know!
Sorry, I didn’t see your reply before I made my second comment. Thanks for the helpful information!
No problem, Rich. You can also subscribe to the comments from a specific post to get e-mail updates.
Pizza: how do you search on ITA for flights on the new 77W? I can fly out of SAN but LAX is much closer to me. Thanks!
Poptarts, the SAN-JFK was most likely only a one-time thing for the 77W. Unfortunately, there’s no way I know of to search for flights by aircraft type on ITA. You can click on each flight option to pull up the relevant info, but I don’t believe there’s any search product that searches by plane type right now. That would be fun if it exists.
Thanks for the reply!
I found this information on google’s product forum site for locating aircraft types via ITA:
“To only return flights on a 744 (i.e. a Boeing 747-400), you can specify “/ aircraft t:744” (without the quotes) in the advanced routing code input field.
You can also use “/ aircraft c:jet” to restrict the search to jets (as opposed to turboprop planes, say).”
So for the flight described in your post, new 777, the command is:
AA / aircraft t:777
Poptarts 🙂
Poptarts, thanks for doing the research! A word of caution, though. AA flies 777s on certain routes (like JFK-LHR) that are NOT the new birds. On their own website, they load the new planes as 77W and the old planes as 777. But, a quick spin through ITA shows both loaded as 777. If the goal is to make sure you’re on a new plane, I think you might need to rely on AA’s website to be 100% sure right now.