American Airlines Flagship Suites Now on Sale Using Miles

The long-awaited new business class from American Airlines is debuting soon, and these suites are now on sale. The first 2 Boeing 787-9s equipped with the new seats — American’s first enclosed pods with a sliding door — will begin flying between Chicago, London, and Los Angeles on June 5, and you can buy tickets as of today.

Let’s go have a look at prices.

How Much You’ll Pay To Fly American’s New Suites

The new American Airlines business class, Flagship Suites, is on sale. Tickets for flights on the first Boeing 787-9s equipped with the new seats can be purchased as of today, May 5, for services beginning on June 5.

The inaugural flight on June 5 will be AA2012 from Chicago O’Hare (ORD) to Los Angeles (LAX). The inaugural Flagship Suite service across the Atlantic will be to London Heathrow (LHR) as AA98, taking off that same evening.

The inaugural flight from Chicago to London can be booked for 207,500 AAdvantage miles in Flagship Suites, the only class showing available seats, plus $5.60 in taxes and fees. That is an extremely high redemption cost; flights across the Atlantic in business class can be booked for much lower amounts of points or miles. In cash, the same flight would cost $4,588 one way.

The booking process doesn’t show different prices, either in miles or cash, for the larger Flagship Suite Preferred seats in bulkhead rows, which have more space and would presumably command a price premium. If you can find those seats available in the seat map — they are in rows 1 and 10 — and can select them without an additional fee, it’s possible that American hasn’t implemented yet a way to charge more for them on the site.

For the very first service with the new Flagship Suites, the Chicago to Los Angeles run on June 5, prices in miles are lower but still outlandish for a domestic flight, even with lie-flat seats. You’ll have to shell out 100,000 miles in business, plus $5.60 (coach is a more reasonable 25,000).

In cash, you would pay $1,390 — a significant premium over flights from Chicago to Los Angeles on the same day on single-aisle airplanes with recliners, not lie-flat beds, in first class.

As American gets more deliveries from Boeing of 787-9s with the new cabins, it will add more destinations. Later this summer, the airline will also operate the new 787-9 from Philadelphia (PHL) to London and Zurich (ZRH). Flagship Suites will then begin operating to Australia this fall, with service from Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) to Brisbane (BNE).

Final Thoughts

After an almost 3-year wait from when it was announced, American Airlines finally has a new business class ready to go. Now we know how much it will cost in miles to fly on it. The inaugural flights are not going to be cheap, but if you are willing to play around with dates, you may find far lower prices by waiting a few weeks.