http://www.aa.com/i18n/agency/Genera...-Class-FAQ.jsp

 

This is great news for Avios bookings. Business is only 2X; First is 3X Avios.

 

Not that US or AA business is worth double Avios like say CX J would be! Still an improvement.

 

But bad for status earning; with programs like Qantas, status earn is 3 x economy for First and 2 x economy for Business.

 

The link says this will look like a schedule change.. Wonder if they will allow changes to itineraries the next day.

 

AA program will adjust the J mileage credits to that of F so there's no longer a penalty for us...unfortunately those who had used this as a way of getting more miles or credits in the BA and QF program will no longer have this little extra. But just about all NAmerican airlines have considered flights across the Canadian and Mexican border, and into the Caribbean, as business rather than first since the airlines operating in those countries have adopted business as their "domestic" F. (As have QF and BA, so just regularizing things world wide.)

 

yeah... with 1.5 times the BA tier points on F/J and twice on Y (compared with AA) it was a nice year on US. Shame it's coming to a close.

 

Yes, but I wish AA would get with the program and stop calling domestic 1st class on a 2 cabin aircraft or Avios and OW would adjust so that these flights just cost 2x coach, which is how AAdvantage prices these awards.

 

Be careful what you wish for. While AA calling it First causes a problem with Avois, it makes it easy to upgrade with AA miles/SWUs on those flights, since A inventory is both a First discount bucket and a miles/SWU upgrade bucket. Comparing it against the C upgrade bucket for Business, and the much greater availablity of A than C, it's clear that if it weren't for the way A does double duty, it would be much harder to upgrade domestic 2 cabin connections than it is now. (And because that's how it already does it on US<->Canada flights, it's obvious that AA would switch from A to C domestically for upgrades if it renamed the front cabin to Business domestically.)

Fortunately (for those of us who care about upgrades even more than about Avios redemptions up front), I doubt AA will do that as long as all other domestic airlines (including UA, DL, and AS) continue to call it First Class. It's just a historical precedent: The USA has always called it that, even as the rest of the world has called it Business Class.

 

+1

As indicated earlier calling it first and booking into P/A/F is useful for status earn on some other *O programs such as BAEC. If that were to happen it would throw a spanner into the works for many posts as well as the Wiki in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...er-thread.html
For me I hope competition keeps it that way.

FWIW, here in Oz, during the Mid 90's had First, Business and Economy - earlier than there there was just First and economy. Towards the end of last century they had a period were the premium product was called "Business First" and then the "First" part was quietly dropped.

 

AA won't change domestic F to anything else and neither will the other two major legacies: UA & DL.