To take advantage of American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion for the month of January I’m off to Shanghai today for a mini-vacation (aka mileage run of sorts). My upgrades cleared for all flights, so I’m quite the happy camper on an $1,100 fare where I’ll be earning over 40,000 elite qualifying miles and redeemable miles.
I’ll be taking American’s fairly new Los Angeles to Shanghai flight, and can’t help but notice how darn empty it is in first and business class. I’m used to empty premium cabins on foreign carriers that don’t make upgrades and award tickets easy, but I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a flight on a US airline this empty up front.
No seats are assigned in first class (the two seats that are blocked are pilot crew rests):
And only 14 of the 37 business class seats are assigned:
As always, seatmaps aren’t necessarily an accurate indication of loads, but in general if a seatmap is empty, the flight is empty.
I’m curious how full the flight ends up after non-revs. Shanghai in January mid-week probably isn’t too hot of a destination for most non-revs, so maybe first class will stay empty and the crew will have an especially pleasant flight.
I also have to mention how awesome Admirals Club agents are. When I checked in at the San Francisco Admirals Club this morning the agent said “now Mr. Lucky, are you already registered for the double miles promotion we’re running through the end of the month?” Entirely minor, but at the same time it’s nice to see an employee that actually cares about customers (which is more common than not at Admirals Clubs).
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