American has just announced interesting new partnerships with The Private Suite LAX and with Blade. I wouldn’t call this new opportunity a great value, though it certainly has the potential to make the travel experience more seamless, and on the high-end that’s what passengers are looking for.
Continue reading: American’s New Partnerships With The Private Suite & Blade
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
To be honest, if they pick the right Cadillac SUV, these are more spacious and just as luxurious as a BMW 7 Series, so I don't see a problem with that.
However, the time savings would probably still be abysmal if you have to collect your own bags...
No value for me. I've experienced the private suite. AA Flagship dining is good enough in LA and NYC. No thanks
Lucky,
It's funny about your checked luggage comment. I once flew batik air domestically BDO-LOP RT in J. On both flights the arrival ground crew collected my bags directly at the tarmac from the cargo hold and hand delivered it to me as soon as I deplaned.
Lucky,
The value in this is all about reducing travel time to the airport, it seems. Traffic to LAX and JFK and be a PITA. Leaving Manhattan anytime between 5 and 8 PM to go to JFK results in an hour and a half flight. Blade seems to get you there much quicker and much more reliably. All of the other stuff at the airport is is besides the point.
I agree on making it seamless. And honestly, from an IT standpoint that wouldn't be too difficult if they sold these as codeshare flights, because then the bag would be tagged as such, and in turn, could be bin-loaded together at the departing end.
Thus a fancy car could meet the pax planeside, and they'd know exactly which bin all Blade folks would be on.
These are cheap/free bolt on products for AA to claim they’re still a full service carrier, instead of what they really are — Spirit with a business class cabin. I bet it will be poorly supported and executed on AA’s part once they’ve wrung as much marketing buzz as they can out of it. You can stock a Neiman’s with K-Mart products if you want. You’re still getting K-Mart in a fancy building.
@Lucky, China Southern offer five-class service on all first class passengers flying between Beijing and Guangzhou, No add-on, They will ask during check-in do you want that service or not, It only costs 38,000 miles for one way first, or a $300 business ticket + 8000 cz miles, I tried before during December 2018. In PEK, all first and Business class, Gold, Silver is eligible for the private security queue(Is crowd as there are only two lines) but the lounges are trash. As there is more than 100 passengers using this service on a380, recommended flying the 777-300ER
I suspect the conversations in this lounge are centered around the escalating price of polo pony food.
@ Applesa -- Do you have a source for that? Haven't heard of it expanding to NY...
Lucky,
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/the-private-suite-lax/index.html
In that light, The Private Suite is a bargain. The Private Suite has likely crunched these same numbers and determined there's a market, as the company is looking to expand to other airports: JFK is next, followed by Miami, Las Vegas and London.
@Justin Pijl there is no such thing as a Cadillac SUV as luxurious as a BMW 7 series. It may seem like it if both of them are parked, but once on the move they are not comparable. And yes, I mean this as a passenger.
Blade has restriction on how much luggage you can bring it with you on board. So it will be a issue for those folks traveling with lots of bags.
This is great. But AA really also needs to focus on the AA Flagship First in-flight experience. I really find it disappointing that the transcon service does not have a second meal on a six hour flight. Or their bathrooms are lack amenities.
Passengers pay around $2000 o/w for such flights. These are easy adds that can enhance the luxury experience.