Sorry to bump such an old thread, but having been away from AU for several months primarily because I was flying 3/4 of the way around the world in precisely the type of seat KISS_ALIVE claims is financially infeasible, I thought I should comment.
International first class is LEAGUES better than domestic first class, which shouldn't even carry that label. I would
barely even call it business class--in fact, the typical domestic first class seat on any of the legacy airlines is worse than a premium economy seat on an international airline (e.g. World Traveller Plus on BA, Premium Economy on QF, etc.--compare
this chart of premium economy and
this chart of domestic first for details). The Prem+ seat I had on OpenSkies (a premium economy product) was downright luxurious compared to my regular Alaska Airlines first class seat (one I never pay for, since I usually get upgraded due to my status with them).
Anyway, as to KISS_ALIVE's assertion that they won't last: BA installed the first true flat-bed First seat in 1996, and as airlines attempt to differentiate themselves and draw high-dollar flyers, they continue to actually improve their first class product (witness the real compartments on Singapore and on-board showers on Emirates
jis mentioned.
See
this article for some details on the evolution of first class seats and quotes from some executives that show why they (or their companies) are willing to pay for them. Check out
this site, too, for some more pictures of the various first class products out there that FAR supersede American Airlines' product.
The prices are high, given the amount of space and service you receive (and access to incredible lounges like the Concorde Room in London). Booked in advance, you can get a Los Angeles to London ticket on British Airways for $6435 each way.
Now I would never plop $13-grand down for a seat, no matter how nice it was (I doubt I'd charter the entire Air Force One if it were available for that--it's just out of my range...oh, all right, Air Force One I would), but that's where using airline miles smartly becomes fun. Why on earth would you waste 25,000 (or more!) miles on a simple flight from LAX to Boston, which can be had for a measly $277 round trip? That equals a paltry redemption rate of 1.1 cents per mile. Even a trip three weeks from now from one out-of-the-way place (ANC) to another out-of-the-way place (Springfield, MO) is a spendy $841, which sounds like it'd be a good deal for miles, but that's still a redemption rate of only 3.3 cents per mile (and that's IF you find a seat at 25,000 miles--if you have to bump up to the next level of award seats, it's even worse).
Contrast that with international flying. You can find a coach seat to Europe for as low as 40,000 miles--a ticket that would cost you $958 from the West Coast of the US to Central Europe in the shoulder season. That's a better redemption rate of 2.3 cents per mile--more than double the domestic flight--but still pretty measly.
Now check out first class. (We'll skip business class and assume it's somewhere in the middle). That $12870 first-class seat to London would cost you a cool 140,000 miles--that sounds like a lot, but look at that redemption rate: 9.2 cents per mile. We're getting back a nearly nine times better return by holding out for that bigger seat!
And it doesn't stop there. I pieced together a ticket in British Airways First from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia (LAX to London to Singapore to Sydney). The ticket would have set me back a scary $27,000. Ouch! Yet I was able to book that same routing using 150,000 Alaska Airlines miles. Do the math on that: the redemption rate was an incredible 18 cents per mile! Since it costs me an average of about 3.3 cents to earn a mile (flying; I do have airline credit cards, but at 100 cents per mile, the earning rate is not mathematically a good deal), I'm actually spending my miles at 5.5 times their value to me. If I want to do another first class flight to Australia, it would actually be cheaper (and more fun!) for me to go out and fly enough to earn those 150,000 miles (which would, at 3.3 cents per mile, cost me $4,950--and actually less, because if I really did fly those 150,000 miles in a single year, I'd earn a higher status tier on my airline of choice which would give me more bonus miles!) and use them instead of paying for first class! Without miles, I'd NEVER be able to afford flying in such comfort and luxury. It really is an experience anyone who enjoys traveling should do at least once in their life.
(After this, you might ask why anyone would bother to pay for a first class seat when you can get it for half or less flying and earning miles. There are many reasons: 1) it takes a substantial time investment to fly enough to earn the miles; 2) that's assuming you can find enough "mileage run"-worthy fares and earn those miles at around 3-4 cents per mile; 3) availability when booking with miles is very limited compared to the actual number of available revenue seats; 4) high-powered executives' time is FAR too valuable to waste doing this, and the company would rather pay the published fares and ensure their company's officers are well-rested and ready to make difficult business decisions right after their flight; and 5) it's possible to pay a business class fare, which is much more reasonable (half or less of the first class fare) and upgrade into first class using status or miles. There is always a market for people to pay the airlines to provide these services.)
You can find some great deals redeeming points with Amtrak, too, but the difference isn't as great. For example, a cross-country coach seat--let's make this using the Slidell loophole--costs about $318 (I'm assuming that's low bucket). At a two-zone coach award cost of 8,000 miles, that's a redemption rate of 3.9 cents per point--already a better deal than an airline fare (but of course you're getting a whole lot more!). If you book a bedroom, which (at least the lowest I was able to find) goes for $1362 or 30,000 points, you can get as high as 4.5 cents per point. Of course, as fare buckets go up, your redemption rate goes up, but I prefer to do my calculations using the cheapest fares available to show a given award's true value.
Of course, it's hard to multiply your cost-to-benefit values as much as with airlines, since AGR is a (relatively) stingy program when it comes to earning miles. Chuljin's adventures in Southern California are probably the best equivalent Amtrak has to a mileage run, and at $3 per 100 points earned, he has a cent-per-point cost of 3.0 (yes, chuljin, I know it varies a little, but I'm going by memory here). Elsewhere on the system, it gets worse: even in the NEC, an $89 Acela fare from BOS-STM--the cheapest 500-point qualifying city pair I could find--costs an abysmal 17.8 cents per point, in which case you're actually
losing money when redeeming for a cross-country sleeper award.
Perhaps one of the best combinations would be to earn miles on CO (where you can find very reasonable, mileage-run-worthy fares in the 3-4 cent per mile range and redeem them on Amtrak for 4.5 cents per mile. Your value multiplier isn't much more than 1, but unless you're chuljin, it beats a value multiplier of 0.25.
OK, I've gone way OT, and it's really, really late and past my bedtime. G'night, all!