There were cold cuts sitting out and then a modest little self-serve bar, none of which was appetizi

As I wrote about on Monday, I was able to book a first class award on American Airlines new A321 from LAX-JFK last week as part of a larger award itinerary that will eventually take me to Oman later this spring. Ordinarily, the flight would have cost me 32,500 miles one-way in first class for just the LAX-JFK leg (65,000 if no MileSAAver space is available).
American launched the new plane on its main transcontinental route on January 7, 2014, and by the end of the month, six of the nine daily transcon flights travel web sites from JFK-LAX will be operated by the new aircraft with the aim of 13 daily flights between JFK and LAX by May 8.
Starting March 6, two of the four daily flights from JFK-San Francisco will be operated on the new aircraft, and by June 11, all five daily flights between the two cities in either travel web sites direction will be on the new aircraft.
I was personally looking forward to flying in first class aboard the new plane because these 10 seats are like AA s new international flagship business class aboard the 777-300 that I got to fly from Sao Paulo to New York last spring. They resemble the reverse herringbone seats of Cathay Pacific business class and EVA Royal Laurel business class.
My transcon first class ticket entitled me to American s Flagship Check-In at LAX. I d experienced this at Miami , and previously at LAX, and the airline opened a new one at JFK in May . Basically you get to go to this little room off the First Class check-in counters where there are a few more counters staffed by special representatives. No one else was there while we were checking in, so it took a matter of moments and then another airline agent took us upstairs to the front of the TSA PreCheck line and even put our bags on the X-ray machine for us. I thought it was a nice touch, and we were into the airport in minutes so we could go straight to the lounge.
The First Class lounge is part of the whole Admirals club on the second floor of Terminal 4 it s basically a smaller, separate travel web sites lounge within the main lounge, travel web sites and to my eyes, there wasn t much of a difference.
There were cold cuts sitting out and then a modest little self-serve bar, none of which was appetizing, so my friend and I waited to eat on the plane which ended up being a mistake. But I ll get to that below.
The new A321T’s have been throwing people off it seems because AA s transcon flyers are used to the twin-aisle 767 s, and this plane has just a single aisle, making it feel a bit more cramped on those long transcon flights.
In First Class, it has 10 fully lie-flat seats in a 1 x 1 configuration in five rows. Business Class also has five rows of four seats each for a total of 20 lie-flat seats in a 2 x 2 configuration. The Main Cabin is laid out in 10 rows of a 3 x 3 configuration with 36 Main Cabin Extra seats up front. This seems to be the cabin that is bothering most people about the plane since it seems small for such a long cross-country haul- especially those who have been used to flying wide-body 767s for years. Even though the new planes have nicer amenities, I ve still heard from numerous people travel web sites (including flight attendants) that the planes feel cramped. I didn t venture past first class on this flight since I was a little late to board, but I didn t feel particularly cramped, though I do prefer a wide-body jet in general.
Travelers in First and Business travel web sites classes have access travel web sites to free entertainment on 15.4-inch screens, and are given Bose noise-canceling headsets.  Back in the Main Cabin, seats have 8.9-inch touchscreens travel web sites with the same entertainment options, and a big plus there are AC outlets at every seat. The entertainment systems on these aircraft also has seat-to-seat chat, live text news and weather updates, 3-D moving maps, airport maps and connecting gate information.
In first class, every seat is an aisle and window seat, and it looked just like my business class seat on the 777-300 from last spring . Each seat has 32 inches of pitch and reclines to over 82 inches. They are just 21 inches wide, so even though the bed is long, it still was a bit cramped for me because when the seat reclines to lie-flat, your feet go in this little cubby-shelf compartment, and I m just too big apparently.
The airline is rolling out new food and beverage options on all its transcontinental routes in First and Business Class cabins aboard the A321T’s, 757 and 767-200 aircraft with a selection of new appetizers, salads, entrées, desserts, and selections for brunch, dinner and overnight travel. But as I found out, they were less than appetizing.
First and Business Class customers traveling domestically also now have the choice to reserve an entrée in advance of their flight which my friend and I should have done because meal service was pretty travel web sites much atrocious! It started with a choice of marinated cheese antipasto or sliced sirloin with corn salsa the beef was decent travel web sites and possibly the highlight of the meal.
The salad was actually nice and made-to-order by a flight attendant with a cart in the aisle, though that also blocked off the aisle for quite a while no getting up to use the restroom before your meal! because of the single-aisle plane.
For my meal I had ordered the shrimp scami, but when it came time for entrees the flight attendant apologized that they had miscounted and they no longer had that meal for me. I had a choice of the grilled beef fillet with haricots verts  or a butternut squash gnocchi. I went with the latter, which was a mistake because the pasta was sweet, but then it was covered in cheese. Not my favorite combination.
I only ate a couple bites before giving up. Instead I ordered some wine off the all-California list, which included Sauvignon Blanc from Mendocino County and Echelon Cabernet. Having lost my appetite, I decided travel web sites to sleep instead of having a made-to-order ice cream sundae for dessert, but they looked good (though it is hard to really mess up a sundae!).
Although I was really looking forward to this flight, and I d say it was a decent experience overall, I have to say that I m not wowed. The seat feels more like a business class seat than a first class seat probably because it is the business class seat on several airlines including travel web sites American! I do like that you don t have to sit next to anyone else, but I can t get over the fact that American is branding this as first class when it s pretty much equivalent to most business class products.
Just a reminder travel web sites if you plan to fly this route,  American Airlines is  offering up to 15,000 bonus miles  for roundtrip travel between New York and Los Angeles from January 7-March 31, 2014 aboard the new planes. To get the bonus miles to your AAdvantage account, click  here  to register and use the code:  TR15K . You can now book a seat for travel beginning January 7, 2014, just look for “32B” listed as the aircraft type. Read our post on this bonus to see all the terms, conditions and details.
I ve also found there to be a lot of last-minute award and upgrade availability I even ran into some TPG readers who had been upgraded! and after the elite ranks are thinned at the end of February and those EVIP systemwide upgrades that Executive Platinums get have expired from last year, I suspect there will be even more, which means you stand a pretty good chance of being able to book one of these seats yourself if you want to.
Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuer. Opinions expressed here are author.s alone, not those of the credit card issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuer. travel web sites This site may be compensated through the credit card issuer Affiliate Program.
On the basis that all domestic airlines brand their front cabin as 1st class (and they re all pretty much worse than this cabin) why are you surprised it s branded 1st? The bigger question should be why is any domestic cabin other than perhaps the occasional wide body 3 class flight) called 1st?
I m not surprised- I m surprised that there seems to be such little differentiation between busienss and first on this plane (same issue AA has with their intl 773 products as well). If you have a really good biz product, why bother with a marginally better first?
How did you get a free LAX- NYC leg in first class for a free stopover on a itenarary to Oman, as AA doesnt fly there. I thought the stopover is only allowed if the US Gateway to international destination is purely on AA metal, not a one world partner airline.
1) The service in Delta Biz Elite is far and beyond what AA offers. I asked for a glass of water while we were being de-iced and was denied because we were about to take off. An hour later, we finally took off. On Delta, they allow you to have a drink in hand (in a real glass!) while preparing for takeoff.
travel web sites 3) The screens on the AA flights are much nicer than Delta s, but I found their entertainment software to be completely buggy and almost unusable. They seem to be running an old version of Android on a very low-powered CPU. The touch screen travel web sites is completely unresponsive and I found myself completely frustrated trying to scroll to a particular title. I plugged my phone into the USB outlet and my entertainment center rebooted which lost my place in the movie I was watching. When I typed the name of the movie I was watching into the search box, it couldn t be found. I had to scroll through the movie titles travel web sites manually again to find it. Very very frustrating. I just wanted to watch a movie without frustration and I will take a smaller screen if it means more comfort.
4) Finally, the big difference, and ultimate comfort item: food. The meal I had on AA was simply travel web sites horrible. A salad was served with ceasar dressing poured by the attendants. travel web sites One word: drenched. I had to scrape travel web sites off the majority of the dressing. A first course of chicken on top of pineapple sounds delicious- after my first bite I was confused and thought that I had gotten a bad piece. The second bite confirmed that