BOOK NOW: Where to Find American Airlines Business Class Awards to Europe

by Gary Leff

Finding American Airlines business class saver award space is nearly impossible. It generally goes in spurts, with seats released and then they’re gone 24-48 hours later.

There are partner options, but:

  • American’s primary transatlantic partner British Airways has better award availability, but draconian fuel surcharges make that ‘free ticket’ cost nearly $1000.

  • Finnair sometimes shows business class space New York JFK – Helsinki on AA.com but more often than not that’s phantom availability.

  • Iberia opens a couple of seats usually when their schedule opens, but then becomes sparse.

  • And with air berlin imploding, bookings more than a few months out are highly uncertain.

So when you find American Airlines business class saver award space, you grab it. Remember that American will let you put awards on a 5 day hold without ticketing, even without all the miles in your account yet. And of course if you do have to ticket, and don’t get free changes as a top tier elite, you can wait for a material schedule change and get a free refund or know this secret to save hundreds of dollars when cancelling.

Right now there’s really good availability on American’s New York JFK – Barcelona flight, especially in the winter months. Here’s 2 passengers in business class for that non-stop:

Two other go-to routes always worth checking are Miami – Paris:

And Dallas – Frankfurt.

Neither of those provides the same connectivity in Europe that Barcelona does. And neither Dallas nor Miami have new Flagship lounges open yet which offer upgraded ground experience for business class passengers who aren’t Executive Platinum members, while New York JFK’s new Flagship Lounge is open.

All three routes are service by American’s Boeing 777-200s. Here’s a complete rundown of the 777-200 fleet which has two different business class seats.


Concept D Business Class


Super Diamond Business Class

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Bit of a fail on Barcelona there Gary. There aren’t any Iberia flights onwards from Barcelona, except to Madrid and a couple of regional airports. Vueling are the major operator in BCN with IB codeshares that can’t be booked with AA miles.

  2. @Craig while i had certainly caveated it and flagged it as limited, the retrenchment of Iberia mainline at Barcelona is indeed greater than I had realized, I’ve edited out the reference to being able to connect beyond Barcelona

  3. It seems when I do find award business space from the East coast hubs many are JFK which is awesome except I don’t live in NYC so it means an airport change from LGA typically. Such a pain.

  4. Regarding the comment above…Am I reading this correctly that Gary “I’m too busy and important to waste time proofreading my posts” Leff actually EDITED one of his posts? And in response to a reader comment to boot? Hell hath truly frozen over and the end times draw nigh!!

  6. I know that this blog caters to people who like their travel free and fancy, but if you live on the East Coast, redeeming 115.000 miles (plus taxes) to fly to Europe in the winter months doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, if if AA will actually let you do it. 🙂

    If you keep up with sites like secretflying, you will find it pretty easy to use about 25,000 credit card loyalty points to do these flights in coach (I paid that twice for SUMMER travel this year), and that even includes the taxes. I know some people seem to generate seemingly unlimited loyalty points (now that would be a trick worth knowing about!), but for those who don’t, I think East Coasters would do much better to save their big point redemptions for Pacific travel, where the flights are truly long and the beds truly useful. Right now, we live in a world of astonishingly inexpensive transatlantic travel — in coach. This world won’t last, because it’s below cost. Take advantage of it.

  7. Both in looking at the photo, and actually sitting in the seat – the ‘Concept D’ seat is an unmitigated casket of an experience, relative to many other business seats. Not a fan.

    Would I take it over coach? Certainly.
    Is it a comfort design fail? You bet.

    And yes, I acknowledge the ‘First World Problem’ associated in my above observation.

    Rant over 🙂

  10. @ Iahphx a world of astonishingly inexpensive transatlantic travel — in coach that is NOT happening.

    Try to find a BOS – CDG or a PVD – CDG for 2018 June! NOT happening. AA, DA, BA, all want $1200+ Tavelocity the same.

    I have been looking for Supersavers from BOS or PVD to CDG for weeks now the best we can get is a 60,000 points plus $421 on BA or we take a short flight BOS to PHL 830am 930 am PHL 1030am next day to CDG (yes an overnight in PHL for 25 hrs. Or we can use 115,000 plus $500+ in Business and still get bad flights.

    AA is making PHL the international Hub which means us people up here in the Northeast are getting the shaft! We were better when US was with Star Alliance.

    FYI AA pulled out of PVD 100% in 2008. PVD has added Allegiant, Frontier, Jetblue, Norwegian, in the past year.

  11. Can you speak about mileage from LAX or SFO to Far East
    (Pacific Travel)
    With good Business Class tickets with mileage!
    Thanks

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