Planning to cash in two 90K awards soon. Origin is SFO, but some flexibility with respect to destination (major European city).

Which OW carrier would you recommend for the best business class service? Should I stick with AA or use a partner?

In searching prior threads, it appears that Air Lingus and Iberia are negatively rated. Unfortunately BA is out on this routing.

How would you rank the options?

BA is very much possible if you are willing to connect through Canada. SFO-YVR/YYZ/YUL-LHR would put you on BA.

I'm gonna' start to sound like a broken record soon on this one, but IMHO, an AA award on Swiss-- only if it's on their new A340-- would be my personal preference (by far) for best J seat to Europe on a 90K award.

I would concur with JonNYC that Swiss A340 has an excellent Business Class Seat and service, and transiting in Zurich would be easy depending on the Swiss connections to your final destination.

However, you would have to change planes from SFO for the direct service LAX-Zurich, or worse change in NYC. Not the best option if you have onward transit in Europe as well.

Steer clear of Iberia and Aer Lingus as advised elsewhere.

The British Airways Fully Flat Beds in Club World are great, and you get a the use of the Molton Brown Spa at Heathrow for a massage.

From a flyertalker perspective, it's fun to check out the upper deck of a 747 (as an AA flyer that wont have happened for you for a while?) and also to take off facing backwards if you have a window seat, as well as the general interest in flying an airline you might not have been on in a while.

You have to get to Vancouver/Toronto/Montreal or Mexico City (ie outside continental US) to redeem AAdvantage Miles on BA, but there are multiple onward connections to most cities in Europe in the Club Europe Cabin (free bar lounge access, champagne and full meal onboard, slightly larger leather seat) and LCCs can get you ex SFO to these destinations for small pennies, or you can try a oneworld award on AA to these non-US BA hubs and onwards to London and Europe from there.

But if you have little interest in checking out alternatives for the sake of it, then I think you would probably have a more direct hassle free journey on AA with their Business Class Seats.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/cwexp/public/en_gb

As an aside, BA have announced the roll out of Second Generation New Club World Fully Flat Bed, with changes in seat coverings and the dividing fan to darker fabric to reflect less light into the cabin at night, softer cushioning for better sleep, and new pillows and blankets.

"Soft" improvements took effect on February 1, 2005. A glass of champagne will now be served prior to take off. In addition to the usual food and bar service, Raid The Larder sandwiches available from a chiller cabinet throughout the journey, along with other snacks. September 11 cutbacks are being rolled back across the fleet.

For me it's

AA
BA
IB
EI

Things that would tempt me to take BA over AA would be the MB Spa going westwards and a chance to fly upper deck on a 747. Lots of comments here on IB from some of the most knowledgeable OW posters.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=395536

I've never flown LX but form what I've seen, and read on FT I would love to try them and they would appear to be preferred option if using LAX. At the end of the day there's always a chance you'll get a bad crew and have a disappointing flight so I'd simply pick the most convenient flights for your final destination.

I have been doing SFO-Europe in J for the last 5 years between 5 and 12x/year. By far the best is BA's latest flight out of SFO (currently leaving at 19:30), but you can't use your miles for it. As someone here posted, you can go to YVR on AS to pick up BA, but apparently it's no easy transfer and it doesn't work on the way back without overnighting in YVR; other Canadian cities are a one-stop flight on AA out of SFO.

Second best is LX's A340 via LAX. I'm absolutely amazed at how much better J class on an LX-operated AA codeshare flight on the A340 (not the A330) is than on an AA-metal flight.

The almost-flat almost-horizontal seats are definitely uncomparably better than the cr@ppy AA ones, and the 10+" screen video on demand / audio on demand system has lots and lots of great content (compare with small screen and 4 movies on a fixed cycle on AA, or the personal video), including cool live video from a camera mounted below the plane and one pointing ahead. Power is 115V AC and accepts both European and US plugs, making extra cables unnecessary. The air humidification system on the A340 truly makes a difference upon arrival and the day after, as 11 hours of ultra-dry air (typical of Boeing planes) is proven to make one groggy and real thirsty. Food (on white linens) and snack service is done 4 times on the ZRH-LAX flight (don't know about the other direction as I always sleep through), including freshly scooped M�venpick ice cream in waffle cones, and water and drinks refill is constant. Premium luggage always gets delivered first (what a concept!)

Only downsides (all very minor ones): can't pre-reserve elite-reserved seats, their one-tray quick dinner does not have a warm entree, regular main meal service (on both directions) starts late and is slow, wines are unexciting, there's no quick breakfast option, and regular breakfast is served way too soon (2+ hours before touchdown) and is slow.

Incidentally, there's no bad seat on the 343 in J. If you're a window seat guy take note than in row 8 one of the windows "doesn't exist" due to wing structure going through the fuselage. Row 11 (I assume) is a bit noisier because it borders Y, but it gets food served first. From my searching FT in the past, rows 4 and 5 are the best if you like a quiet mini-cabin setting, but all the windows there (and most of the other seats there too) are blocked for STC elites. I have been unable to get LX to assign them to me even as a 5MM AA EXP, and the window seats there have always been taken by the time I got to the airport. Unlike with AA, there's no real comfort penalty for being in a bulkhead seat.

Oh, and *do* read the instructions in the magazine on how to best use the J seat: for example, if you sleep on your side, do not use the fully reclined position as it's not the most comfortable for that position!

I saw the picture linked by apudme. It appears that due to the seemingly little legroom, when fully reclined the sleeping seat in front of me would be an inche or so away from my feet? Is that a fact, or was it an illusion? Actually, from the picture, it doesn't even appear to me that there is enough space for a full incline! AA's J seems to have much bigger legroom - correct me if I am mistaken, as I do plan to try out LX J to Europe if possible. Thanks a lot.

You are -very- mistaken! The seat in front reclining has no effect whatsoever on you-- none-- these are not those kind of seats, they are state-of-the-art new generation seats. The pitch ("legroom") on AA's -J- seat is necessitated by the recline of the seat in front-- but that's not the way modern, electronic J seats work-- CX, QF, LX, JL all use this new kind of seat (as will AA by next year.) I literally can't fathom anyone being more comfortable in AA's J seat than LX's J seat-- YMWV, trust me.

Thanks for the clarification. I bet it must be an improved version of BA's Club World fully flat bed. But even then, BA's pitch felt much wider than LX's as portrayed in the picture! I have to fly it to believe it then!!

It really has nothing whatsoever to do with BA's seat-- two totally different concepts, IMHO, BA really has their own seating system. I think of the new LX seat as a "better" version of CX's J seat. JL's new seat is also more "related" to this new design (and QF's new one, which I haven't tried.) Although, as has been pointed out, only BA's seat will go completely horizontal.

maple I think my original (SEAT UPRIGHT) photo was misleading - perhaps this one might help you see more clearly what the Club World Seat looks like when "reclined":

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/362328/M/

The other bed-seats do not lie fully horizontally flat - so watch out for the difference between "fully flat" which often = crown jewels scrunching slightly angled flat seat.

You can see more detail in the Club World Experience linked in my first post.

The BA Next Generation New Club World Flat Seat will be rolled out over the fleet over the next six months, but will look largely similar and have the same mechanism (as its the same seat, just re-upholstered to meet many comments that when in bed mode, it can be a little lumpy and hard, esp if you sleep on your side).

Only Virgin Atlantic has a better bed in Business IMHO.

US to International at YVR is a pretty easy connection as long as you have baggage checked through. There's a special way for these connecting passengers and there is only a quick customs/immigration check - there's no security check or anything like that.

BA is running an extra (earlier) LHR-YVR flight on some days this summer, that might make it possible to connect to the AS YVR-SFO flight...

Oh, didn't know about it, thanks. I looked it up, and for others to know here's the schedule of the extra flight, BA 87, which operates 3x/week as a 744 on 04JUN-25OCT:

• Tuesdays and Saturdays: LHRYVR 1350 1515, connects to AA/AS 7082 YVRSFO 1655 1915
• Mondays: LHRYVR 1510 1635, connects to AC564 (and its UA codeshare) YVRSFO 1930 2145

For completeness, the extra flight on the way back, BA 86, is an earlier departure that runs 04JUN-25OCT on the same days as above as follows: YVRLHR 1815 1110+1

Those BA club seats look very, very enticing. Unfortunately, SFO-YVR is currently running close to $200 RT on Alaska, and I'm not sure I'll be able to squeeze the entire journey into a 90K OW award. Not to mention the hassle of multiple connections via YVR and LHR to reach the continent. Still, might be worth it just for that "bed"!

The LX routing via LAX sounds like a good second choice, particularly as ZRH is very convenient for my proposed excursion. Also, I gather the AA/LX connection at LAX is preferable to the AA flights via ORD, DFW and JFK.

So to sum up, it sounds like the ranking for J would be (from best to worst):

BA
LX
AA
IB
EI

and although it hasn't received any commentary I suppose FinnAir falls just above or below AA.

Thanks everyone for your valued advice. ^

P.S. Last time I flew on the upper deck of a 747 was quite a few years ago on UA, after receiving an op-up. It wasn't that special, but then again I wasn't in a position to complain.

Hold it.

In your OP you said "two 90K awards" so I assumed they were conventional, all-partner r/t AA awards. But if they are in fact OneWorld awards... forget all that nice stuff I said about LX.