One more Flagship Transcon flight: JFK-SFO again!

I arrived at the Chelsea lounge around 90 minutes before departure, since my only reason for visiting was to take a shower. The lounge was not busy at all, since it was too early for most intercontinental flights and there aren’t really that many transcontinental flights.

There are a few bathrooms/shower suites in the back of the lounge:

Are these the best showers I’ve had in an airline lounge? No. Were they fine? Yes. That’s generally the name of the game for American Airlines’ premium experiences: everything generally meets requirements. I know that this lounge is shared with BA, but it definitely feels more like an AA experience to me than a BA experience.

I briefly stopped by the dining area to see if they had changed the menu at all from my last visit:

They had not.

After having checked out all the lounges in the terminal, except for the Admirals Club, it was time to head to the flight! For once I was not one of the last people on the plane because I left the lounge before boarding was announced, haha. I assigned myself seat 1A on this flight (as I often do):

There was something wrong with the cushion on this seat, though, and the flight attendant wasn’t able to fully fix it. Luckily seat 4F was available, so I actually was able to switch over to that seat. It was my first time in that seat, so I figured it’d also be interesting to get a different perspective on the cabin. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t seem any different. I always love how quickly these A321s board, and so we were off very quickly. AA books off this flight as being 6.5 hours long, but the actually time in air was projected to only be about 6 hours, which is not that different from flights from New York to London.

Waiting at my seat were the standard accoutrement expected, including bedding, a menu, bottle of water, and an amenity kit. Everything was as expected for this route:

Unlike my night time flight, I had a much more senior flight attendant. She did her job very well and definitely took care of us all (and I do really appreciate her working with me to fix the seat problem). She also had a very New York style to her, which is what you’d expect from a flight starting in New York (compared to Trisha).

Shortly after takeoff, the meal service began with a table cloth:

I selected the seared tuna as my starter:

I promise that there was some tuna under there, haha. It was weird how small a serving it ended up being. Maybe it was just something about the plating of it was off. Next up was the tortilla soup:

I love tortilla soup, so I was excited to have it, but it was a bit bland as often happens on planes. I feel like tortilla soup is a bit of a bold choice for a plane flight because it’s a soup that’s expected to be at least somewhat spicy, haha.

Next up was the main course of seabass:

I like the combination of colors they used for the dish, and this one was plated pretty nicely all things considered. I thought that the seabass was a bit overcooked, but I was also pretty tired at that point and so was not paying too close attention to the meal. I was tired enough that I actually skipped the ice cream sundae, which is generally considered to be the best part of any American Airlines meal service.

I instead put the seat into lie-flat mode and then proceeded to sleep until it was time for landing.

As always, the flight attendant came around to collect the headphones before landing, which continues to just be so tacky. The headphones, at this point, just aren’t anything special. Upon arrival in SFO Terminal 1, I had a very long walk to baggage claim, as per usual, but my bags showed up promptly and soon I was on a BART train home.

In summary, this Flagship First flight was just as good as my previous flights.  With the completion of this leg, my specific need to experience the cabin while it still exists was satiated.  I do hope I get to experience it a couple more times before it disappears. The ground experience at New York is decent, and I think overall I actually prefer the Soho and Greenwich lounges to the Chelsea lounge (4/5).  The seat on the flight is still my favorite offered on transcontinental journeys (5/5).  The meal was perfectly fine (3/5).  Service was perfectly fine but nothing really wowed me about it, and New York-based flight attendants are known for being very New York (3/5).  The IFE offering was standard (4/5).  Overall, the flight gets a 19/25, which reflects that it’s a good transcontinental first class offering but also why the cabin is being eliminated; there’s nothing to wow you into spending substantially more over Flagship Business.

Pro-rating the price I paid for the First Class ticket from Warsaw to San Francisco, I estimate I paid around $700 for this flight, which I put on my Amex Platinum card.  This long-haul flight earned me 210 Tier Points as well as 10 344 Avios, which is worth around $134, and the total points I earned are worth around $183, for a return of 26%, which is great.  For the overall ticket, I earned a total of 460 tier points and 26 516 Avios, so this flight represents nearly 40% of the overall trip’s earnings.