Best Economy International Flights Ever?

I’m sitting at DFW after a week-long trip to China, and I flew AA on their newish DFW-PVG route. On the outbound, the flight was empty enough that I could get a row of five seats to myself in coach and create my own “flat” bed of sorts.

On the return, I ended up getting an op up to business class. I saw signs at check-in that they might be looking for volunteers (offer of 800 USD travel voucher and a confirmed seat the next day) to take a next-day flight. It turns out they didn’t need any volunteers, but they did end up operationally upgrading a ton of passengers. Based on seat maps from the days prior to the flight, business class went from having a load of maybe 7 or 8 passengers to being a full cabin. I myself got one of those op ups, which I was very grateful to get. They almost took it away because I had ordered a special meal and they said they wouldn’t have enough non-special meals in coach, but with some puppy dog eyes the gate agent called catering and was able to order one additional coach meal so I could sit in business.

Anyway, for those of you who are traveling in coach on DFW-PVG or DFW-HKG, very light loads on the outbound to Asia and oversold flights returning from Asia seem to be relatively par for the course for the summer according to both the gate agents that I’ve talked to and reports on Flyertalk. This could make it an interesting gamble if you don’t want to spend any SWUs as you very well might be lucky enough to get a row to yourself on the outbound and an op up on the inbound.