As TPG reported last week, American will launch service from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD) to London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) beginning June 5. On Aug. 6, the airline will add service from Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) to LHR.
American will also debut the jet — and the Flagship Suites concept — on its flights between Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Brisbane, Australia, come late October.
High demand for American Airlines' new Flagship Suites
As you might expect, these planes — and especially the new suites, complete with American’s first-ever sliding privacy doors — are in high demand.
Coach seats on the June 5 inaugural international flight from O’Hare to Heathrow are already sold out, per American’s booking platform. If you opt to book one of the snazzy new suites, it will run you north of $6,000.
Using AAdvantage miles doesn’t look much more appealing, at nearly 300,000 miles one-way. According to TPG's May 2025 valuations, American miles are worth 1.65 cents each. While this award gives you an impressive redemption value of 2 cents per mile, not many people may have 300,000 AA miles in their account.
And while there’s plenty of summer economy award space through AAdvantage at 27,000 miles one-way, business-class redemptions look pretty pricey through June and July, with award tickets running north of 100,000 miles or even 200,000 miles, in some cases.
Note that premium economy tickets for 47,000 American miles is a really good award deal, giving you a value of about 8.6 cents per mile. However, you may want to hold off on booking those premium economy seats when you can book a luxurious business-class seat for just a few more miles.
Book American Flagship Suites through Alaska Mileage Plan
But there’s an enticing work-around: Book through one of American’s Oneworld alliance partners — specifically, Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan program.
As View from the Wing’s Gary Leff was the first to report, Alaska has opened up new Flagship Suite award redemptions starting at just 55,000 miles one-way (plus taxes and fees). Alaska miles are worth 1.5 cents apiece, per our May 2025 valuations. Therefore, this redemption would give you a value of 11 cents per mile. That is an amazing deal!
While there isn’t award space available every day this summer, it’s not too difficult to find.
To book a Flagship Suite using Alaska miles, you’ll want to make sure you’re picking a flight route that operates using the new plane. American designates its new 787-9s with the Flagship Suites (a whopping 51 of them, to be precise) as its “787-9P.”
In American’s booking channels, look for flights that say “78P,” like in this example for an ORD-LHR flight for July 18.
Booking this flight through American for a business-class seat is not a bad deal (I’ve seen much worse). But you could be wasting valuable reward miles.
If you just go over to Alaska’s website and run an award search for the same flight, you’ll find it available (in this case) for 55,000 miles plus $19 in taxes and fees.
PHL-LHR
Here’s an example for the Philly flight on the new 787-9P on Aug. 13.
There’s actually some pretty decent August award space on this route through AAdvantage at 62,000 miles one-way.
But again, you can get it for 55,000 Alaska miles instead.
Remember, even if you don’t have a stash of Alaska miles sitting around, you can — at least for now — transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to its new sister airline, Hawaiian Airlines, and then move those miles to Alaska (but you may want to act soon). Note that Amex does charge a fee (up to $99) to transfer points to HawaiianMiles.
Also, if you are a Bilt Rewards member, you can transfer Bilt Points at a 1:1 ratio to Alaska Mileage Plan.
If you’re not finding suitable award space through American or Alaska, you can always try searching through Oneworld alliance partners, such as the handful of carriers that use Avios as their award currency (such as British Airways, Iberia, Qatar Airways and Finnair) — or American’s Australian partner, Qantas.
You can also use a third-party tool like Seats.aero, Point.me or Roame.travel to assist you in searching for award space. Just triple-check the aircraft type on the route. It's possible a third-party tool or partner (such as Alaska) will only list the aircraft type as the "787-9" — you'll want to make sure it's the "787-9P" or "78P" configuration.
As mentioned, American's new Dreamliners with the new configuration have 51 business-class suites, versus 30 on its existing 787-9s.
