Earlier in the year I secured a decent Business Class Fare from Athens to San Francisco. It routes via the BA London City-> Shannon-> New York (JFK) and you clear US immigration in Shannon.

Last week, I checked my flights and found that AA had withdrawn its late MIA-SFO flight. (I had hoped to travel JFK-MIA-SFO to score 270 BA Tier Points, the direct service JFK-SFO books in to Business class so earns only 140 Tier Points.)

The afternoon MIA-SFO schedule is shown above! There used to be a flight from JFK which landed at 19:20, it’s gone now, and I won’t make it from Terminal 7 to Terminal 8 at JFK in 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Calling AA in the UK, elicited an offer to rebook me from Heathrow to JFK with American (that would have dropped those Tier Points to 140, from 210 for the LCY service). I declined, and countered with an offer to stay overnight in Miami and fly on the next morning. (There is an 0830 flight operated by a two class 767-300 that I quite liked). This was a no go, but AA offered to rebook me instead on the 1755 flight from JFK, a three class 767-200, in First Class. I checked ‘You’re prepared to book me in First Class for that flight?‘. The agent confirmed she was. I even managed to snag the seat I like best. However, this change will cost me the 60 Tier Points I would have earned from JFK-MIA, but I shall just have to try and find another short trip to earn them back.