I booked this flight back on Halloween 2025 when I saw an alert from Straight to the Points, a great award alert service that I have used many times to grab hard-to-find award seats for multiple travelers. It was 83k AA miles plus about $20 per person. Because there are free cancellations with American, I just booked what seemed like a good date for us and then asked my wife about it later. We ended up figuring out that we could spend a week in New Zealand so we kept these award seats.

We boarded just after 10pm and the flight was showing on time, which was important as we had a connecting flight to Christchurch on a separate ticket. I selected suites 2D and 2H as they are two of eight Flagship Suites at the front of each business class cabin which provide a larger seating area and additional amenities. Eventually, American will start charging extra for these larger suites the way that Air France, Virgin Atlantic and others are already doing with these “business plus” products.

We received a pre-departure beverage choice of champagne, orange juice or water served in a plastic cup (not exactly premium or sustainable.) I took a look around the seat. Unfortunately, the lighting wasn’t great.

You can see the extra space on the footwell to the side and the extra red storage bins that the regular business seats do not provide. The seat also came with Bang & Olufsen noise-canceling headphones and wireless charging.

The screen is the same size as the other business seats, which is a bit disappointing as it is further away from the passenger. It also is on a bit of a weird angle as the bulkhead is not directly straight from the seat angle. These are minor things that AA should have corrected in the design if they want this to seem like a premium product (and charge extra for it).

One nice thing on most US airlines is the availability of overhead air vents. American has these over the center seats as well, but Delta does not on the A350, so choose your seat wisely.

The amenity kits in these seats are supposedly better and more premium than the regular business seats. Kudos to American for including tissues as I often find those missing from amenity kits.

Slippers were also provided.

My wife’s flight attendant came by and offered her pajamas right away. Mine didn’t come by with them until we were just about ready to push back, so I couldn’t change until after dinner. My wife also got confirmation of her pre-order well before takeoff, but I didn’t until just before dinner was served. Here were the menu options we received 30 days before the flight:

Here’s the in-flight menu:

Boarding was completed fairly smoothly as far as I could tell, but considering everyone boarded through door 2, we didn’t have anyone walk past our seats which is always a plus. Business class looked just about full. The captain gave us his welcome, said he expected a relatively smooth journey and mentioned that we would likely arrive a bit early.

WiFi was available for the first part of the journey based on the ViaSat coverage. It actually kicked in a few times even out of the coverage area in the South Pacific as my emails and messages would sporadically download. When it was working for the first few hours, it was quite fast.

AA35 787-9P DFW-AKL
Scheduled: 22:59 – 08:10 (+2 days)
Actual: 22:53 – 07:34 (+2 days)

After the safety video, I fired up the movie F1 in the IFE as I hadn’t seen it yet and it seemed like a good airplane movie to watch during the climb-out and dinner service. It was a fun movie, but I can’t believe it was actually nominated for Best Picture.

I planned to try and stay awake for a few hours as there was an 18-hour time difference between Dallas and Auckland. If I could stay awake until about 2am CDT Friday morning, that would be around 8pm NZ time on Friday night. Then I would try and sleep for as much of the rest of the flight as possible.

We were wheels up at 23:12 and water bottles were handed out first. Then pre-dinner drinks were served from a cart. I decided on the Bollinger champagne. It was served with warm mixed nuts.

We were served our appetizer at 23:55, about 40 minutes after take-off. The shrimp was tasty but the rice cake thing was gross. The salad was fine once I got the oil and vinegar dressing which was missing at first.

Bread was offered and I selected a pretzel roll along with a La Croix to drink.

Next up was the sea bass entree and despite the usual poor plating by American, it was quite good with a spicy kick in the sauce.

For dessert, I chose the ice cream sundae with hot fudge, berries and whipped cream. How can you go wrong with this?

The movie ended soon after the dinner service and I used the restroom to change into my pajamas and get ready for bed. The Flagship Suites come with additional bedding including a thick mattress pad, separate cooling pillow and second blanket. It was quite easy to get comfortable with the larger suite. Of course this isn’t Qatar or Emirates, so we had to make up our own beds.

I slept on and off for the next eight hours or so. I expect I got a total of about five or six hours of sleep which isn’t bad. In the middle of that time, I did get up and grabbed a snack back in the galley behind the first section of business class and listened to some podcasts for a bit until I drifted back off to sleep.

When I was awake, I was offered the mid-flight snack of beef sliders or a mezze plate, but I passed on that as I was full from dinner. I woke up for good around 4am NZ time with about three and half hours left in the flight. I ordered a cup of coffee and watched a couple of episodes of Paradise, which I had downloaded on my iPad. No cookie or other treat was served with the coffee.

About two hours before landing, breakfast was served. I ordered the frittata and it was quite good. It was served with fruit, yogurt and a choice of bakery item. I chose the pain au chocolate.

Unfortunately, there are no external cameras on this aircraft to watch the approach from the center seats. I’m sure it would have been nice on a sunny day in Auckland, but we had plenty of nice views to come.

Overall, we enjoyed this AA flight, especially in the larger Flagship Suites. I’m sure the regular business seats aren’t bad, but it always helps to have some extra room to stretch out on an ultra long-haul flight. The food and service were good. We tempered our expectations compared to some of our recent adventures on Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways.

The purser announced that all of our New Zealand forms needed to be filled out online, which I of course had already done. There’s the NZETA which is sort of like the US ESTA or UK ETA, a way to get money out of tourists who don’t actually need a visa. You can get this a few weeks before arrival. Then there is the NZTD, which is the customs declaration that you fill out within 24 hours of arrival. I completed ours in the lounge in Dallas.

We landed on a beautiful sunny day in Auckland. We were at a remote stand so we were bussed to the terminal. That did give me a chance to take a picture of the massive engine through the glass wall on the stairway.

Immigration was via e-gates so it was super quick. We had checked an extra bag for the Vegas wedding we were headed to on the way home so we waited for our three suitcases at baggage claim. They all came out fairly quickly and then we headed through customs where we had medications to declare. The agent simply asked us what medication and how much we brought then sent us through without even inspecting anything or reviewing the note from my wife’s doctor.

We then went through biosecurity, which is an extra scan of all bags for any fruits, vegetables, nuts or anything else that is on the banned list. A violation will cost NZ$400 so make sure you dispose of anything that might violate the rules before you get off the plane.

We stored our extra suitcase at the baggage storage facility at the international terminal, which was very convenient to where we exited biosecurity. It cost around US$80 for the week. We did not need or want to schlep this extra bag around with us for the week.

From there, we walked to the separate domestic terminal which is about a 15 minute walk. Soon, everything will be under one roof as an extension to the international terminal is under construction, which causes a bit of a detour on the current walk. There is a green line painted all the way from one to the other so it’s impossible to get lost. There’s also a shuttle bus, but we wanted a walk in the sun after 15 hours of flying. We got from the arrival gate to the domestic terminal in about an hour so it was too early to check in with Jetstar for our domestic flight. My wife napped in the waiting area and I bought a coffee and watched a bit of the Manchester United-Crystal Palace match until it was two hours before the flight and we could check in.

Up Next: Jetstar AKL-CHC Review

If you have questions about this post, let me know in the comments or send me an email at emptynestermiles@gmail.com. If you are thinking about opening a new credit card, please use one of my links. I also recommend using CardPointers to track your credit card spending discount offers.