Advantages: Comfortable seating. Plently of leg room. Excellent website. Disadvantages: Disappearing Attendants.
It was our 30th wedding anniversary in May and we wanted a holiday to remember! After much deliberation we decided on a music themed road trip in America. Starting in Chicago, we would travel via the old Route 66 to St Louis, then onward to Nashville, Memphis, Jackson, Lafayette and finally New Orleans.
The next decision was with which airline to travel. To a degree the decision was made for us as AmericanAirlines fly directly to Chicago daily from Manchester (our nearest airport) at a reasonable time - leaving at 10.30 a.m. and arriving in Chicago's O'Hare at 1 p.m. (Other UK airports served by AmericanAirlines are London's Stansted and Heathrow). Return flights to Chicago are currently (May 2008) £351 per person. Other US destinations are available at a range of prices.
To keep things simple we also used an AmericanAirlines ...
Advantages: Well Priced Disadvantages: Rude Cabin Crew let others down
--Prices--
As with all airlines the prices go up and down on a day to day basis. The main reason we decided to use American was because for the 4 of us they were around £200 cheaper than BA.
Going There-
--Check in and Boarding--
We tried to check in online as we have done with other airlines but the website wouldnt let us and said we needed to check in at the airport instead.
We could enter all our personal information onto the website though which would save some time at check in.
We used the self service checkin which wouldnt allow us to check in online, however one of the customer service clerks said we could check in self service then they would check our bags at the desk.
This all went without a hitch.
Off to boarding. Once your boarding pass was checked so confirm you were going onto the right flight, they sent you ...
Advantages: Easy to use and good bonus schemes Disadvantages: Limited offers for UK residents
AmericanAirlines Advantage
AmericanAirlines Advantage is AA's frequent flyer collection scheme and I have to say that it is one of the best frequent flyer schemes that I have found in recent years; the only problem being that as I live and fly mainly out of Manchester in the UK the flights from this airport are limited to flights to Boston and Chicago.
How to register?
Registration and monitoring of your account can all be done via the AmericanAirlines UK website. This is a very quick registration process involving the usual name and address details. You are then sent a user name and password and away you go!
When you register you will receive 1,000 miles as a bonus and you can also gain additional miles for signing up for email alerts etc. making it quite satisfying to see you balance flying up quite quickly ...
