Review: British Airways First Class SFO - LHR
Review: Iberia Airlines Business Class LHR - MAD
Recap: Sights in Spain
Review: American Airlines Business Class MAD - DFW
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American Airlines (AA) #37
Madrid (MAD) - Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW)
Sunday, January 3rd, 2016
12:20 PM - 4:45 PM, Duration: 10 hrs, 25 mins
Boeing 777-200 Business Class, Seat 5H

Introduction

When we originally booked our flights to Spain for New Year's, we weren't able to find many options for the return flight: no Star Alliance, oneworld, or SkyTeam airline had two award seats available from Europe to the US during the first few days of January, and paid fares were crazy expensive. We were pretty set on going to Spain, so we decided to book an American Airlines "AAnytime" award, which requires many more miles than a "MileSAAver" award but has better availability. In our case it cost us 135,000 miles each for one-way business class, which is a ton (a saver award would have been 50,000 miles). But we were gambling that some last-minute award availability would open up and we'd be able to change our tickets.

Unfortunately nothing better ever opened up, so we were stuck paying the high mileage rate. To make things worse, we weren't all that excited about the flight itself, since the plane type was an unrefurbished 777-200. Jen reviewed this product last year and wasn't impressed: the cabin is dated, the seats aren't lie-flat, and there's no all-aisle access, so it's one of the worst international business class products out there. But hey, at least we had a way to get home, and we didn't have to fly in economy!

Check In

We took the train to Madrid-Barajas airport and got there about two hours before our flight. The economy class check-in line was insanely long, and the business class line wasn't much better, so we went to the automated kiosks. An agent quickly stopped us and told us that none of the machines were working and that we had to wait in the line instead. Later, while we were standing in line, we saw several passengers check in using the machines, so I told Jen to hold our spot while I tried to use the machines again. The agent repeated her earlier statement that all the machines were broken, and refused to explain why a select few passengers were being allowed to check in using them. It was bizarre.

After about 30 minutes in line, we finally made it to a check-in agent. I'm a relatively patient person, but Jen has a short fuse, so by this point in time she was getting pretty snippy and wanted nothing more than to quickly get her boarding pass. The agent had other plans, and decided to play a game with us that I can only describe as "500 questions". She started out by asking Jen a bunch of general questions about our trip, that gradually got more and more specific to the point of being ridiculous:

• "What were you doing in Spain?"
• "We were on vacation."
• "Where in Spain did you visit?"
• "Madrid and Seville."
• "What did you do in Seville?"
• "Sightseeing."
• "Specifically?"
• "We saw the Alcázar and Plaza de España."
• "What else did you do in Seville?"
• "Um, I don't know. Ate some tapas."
• "What were the names of the restaurants that you ate at?"
• "I have absolutely no idea."
• "OK, what else did you do in Seville?"
• "Seriously? We took the f***ing train down to f***ing Seville, walked around, took a bunch of pictures of orange trees, got caught in the rain, saw a bunch of sights, then took the train back to Madrid. I don't know what else to tell you."

At that point the check-in agent turned her attention to me, and asked me some equally specific questions, except mine focused on my job rather than our travels. Toward the end of it I was having a minor existential crisis - she had managed to probe so deep that I'd learned there were many things I couldn't answer about myself. Eventually she decided that we probably weren't terrorists and handed us our boarding passes.

As I walked away from the check-in area, I checked our boarding passes noticed that our seats had changed - we were in row 5 instead of our previously-selected row 10. I suspected there might have been an equipment change, so I looked up our flight on FlightAware.com, and saw that our plane type had changed to a retrofitted 777-200. This was great news, as it meant we'd be getting a brand-new cabin with lie-flat seats, all-aisle access, and large TV screens.

We headed through security, which was relatively quick, then had a train ride and a long walk to get to our gate. On the way there, we briefly stopped in at the Iberia lounge, which was quite nice although very crowded.

Flight

The line for priority boarding was extremely long, probably due to the fact that Dallas/Fort Worth is American Airlines' largest hub and thus has many elite passengers flying to it. We got onboard and settled down in our seats: my seat (5H) was a rear-facing seat in the middle section, whereas Jen's (5K) was a forward-facing window seat. The cabin is in a 1-2-1 configuration, which meant I had someone next to me, but there was a tall partition so I never saw or noticed them for the duration of the flight.

The old 777-200s have 16 first class seats and 37 business class seats, whereas the retrofitted 777-200s only have a business class cabin with 45 seats. I suspect some passengers got bumped down from first to business, but honestly it's not much of a downgrade considering how crappy American's old first class product is.

The cabin felt modern, with new finishes and seats with plenty of privacy. There was more than enough overhead bin space, so I had no trouble stowing my bags. The seats were in a reverse herringbone configuration, with rows alternating between forward-facing and rear-facing seats. At my seat I found a large pillow, a blanket, and an amenity kit waiting. Each seat has two power plugs and two USB ports, and features a touchscreen remote for the TV, along with another touchscreen to control the seat.

Review: British Airways First Class SFO - LHR
Review: Iberia Airlines Business Class LHR - MAD
Recap: Sights in Spain
Review: American Airlines Business Class MAD - DFW


After spending a few weeks looking for the best flight deals in and out of Europe for the week after Christmas, Spain emerged as the clear winner of where we should go. This late in the game (early December), there were few options left for using miles to get in and out of Europe on the approximate dates we wanted. It was a plus if we didn't have to fly in economy, so we chose Spain. I'd never been before and it was a big hole in my personal map of Europe, so I was excited to check it out. 

Barcelona is the most common Spanish city to visit in my opinion, so I was ok with doing something a little different. Chris had been to Barcelona and thought it was much too "touristy" so we chose to do Madrid instead. He had really enjoyed Valencia, so we were thinking about going there as well, but a friend of mine spoke so highly about Seville that we decided to spend a few days there rather than in Valencia.

We ended up flying in to Madrid and spending the night near the Atocha train station since our flight got in so late that night. The next morning, we got up very bright and early for our train ride to Seville, where we spent the next two and a half days before taking the train back to Madrid for another day and a half. This might sound like a very small amount of time to spend in each place, but we tend to enjoy packing things in and actually felt like we had enough time in each location even though the trip was pretty short.

Seville

Seville was, without a doubt, my favorite between the two cities. It was such a cute city with some amazing architecture and I very much enjoyed wandering the streets of the old town. I became obsessed with the incredible Spanish tiles everywhere and the orange trees were almost as ubiquitous. We loved the Plaza de España which was built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. It instantly reminded me of the entrance to the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas with the canal circling the plaza where you could take cheesy little boat rides, but it was still incredibly charming. The tile work throughout the plaza was amazing and the whole thing was very grand.