Questions and Answers

Lucky. I currently have 140k AA miles. Last year I had a ton of United miles and went to Japan on United’s new 787 Dreamliner in Business/First. I am looking to book my travel to Germany next year and attend Oktoberfest in Sept-Oct. My goal is to fly in either the Dreamliner again in Business/First or something that might be just as good. So far I am lost, as the only flights I can seem to come across are from British Airways, American or Air Berlin, none of which are on the Dreamliner. I refused to fly BA as the taxes fuel charges and fees are outrageous even when using miles.

Is there a Dreamliner that gets to Europe from Chicago that I can us AA miles? If not, whats the next good plane type I should look for to make sure I get the most value for my miles and have a great flight experience?

Well both Finnair and Iberia fly to Chicago, but no Dreamliner sadly.

Finnair is just starting to take delivery of the new A350
[URL]http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Finnair/Finnair_Airbus_A350-900.php[/URL]
But I’m not sure if they will have enough of the planes by the time you travel that it will not be on a older plane.

Iberia operates a number of A330 in a nice config, but again not sure if they fly these planes to Chicago.
[URL]http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Iberia/Iberia_Airbus_A330_300.php[/URL]

Not a longhaul flight, but Lan flies a 787 MAD-FRA, might be a nice way to connect if you end up flying Iberia

If you had more miles it would have been possible to book 2 award with either LAN or Qatar and get the 787 on at least one leg, but on the direct US-EU marked you are severely limited since only AA and BA own 787’s of Oneworld airlines and fly this route.

John T – looks like only AA and BA have 787s and AA doesn’t fly theirs to Europe at this time though they have many on order so that could change. Air Berlin, Iberia and Finnair don’t use that plane and flying any other AA partner would require 2 awards.

I’ll let the true avgeeks speak up as to what might be the next-best thing to fly.

Keep in mind unless you fly Air Berlin non-stop to Berlin, you’re going to have to change planes somewhere and that business class in Europe is basically coach with the middle seat blocked. So while AB is certainly not perfect, you’d get the most time in the flat bed seat using them. Here’s a review of AB’s business class from last year:
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/06/08/review-airberlin-business-class-a330-miami-dusseldorf/[/URL]

[USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER]

Problem with Airberlin is that they don’t even have Euro-J. They are a LCC inside Europe with only Y seating and a pitch of 29 inches. They sound nice if they fly directly to where you are going, but otherwise not so nice.

[USER=268]@No Name[/USER] – yikes, didn’t realize that. Well, flying into Berlin will at least get one to Germany and hopefully it’s just a short hop after that.

[USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER]

AB even got all economy A330 for flights mostly to the Med and the Canary islands in summer and I think Egypt and Caribbean during the winter.

[URL]http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Berlin/Air_Berlin_Airbus_A330-200_V2.php[/URL]

Inside Europe think of them as more refined and upscale version of Norwegian (they have been at it longer) or Jetblue with much less space. Sadly. Never understood what they are doing in premium alliance like Oneworld.

They have even been know to show up for US flights if their 2 class A330 goes tech.
[URL]http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/airberlin-topbonus/1505853-removed-all-business-class-transatl-flight.html[/URL]