American Airlines Adds Premium Economy Awards

It was previously rumored that American Airlines would be adding premium economy awards. Today American Airlines officially announced this. Below you can see the award chart for these awards:

Pricing is somewhere between economy and business. For example flights to Europe cost:

  • 30,000 miles in economy
  • 40,000 miles in premium economy
  • 57,500 in business

Pricing to other locations isn’t as good though, for example to Alaska:

  • 15,000 miles in economy
  • 25,000 miles in premium economy
  • 30,000 miles in business

It doesn’t look like you’ll be able to book these premium economy seats on partner airlines unfortunately.

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14 Comments
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Russ B
Russ B (@guest_711515)
January 24, 2019 19:39

It’s a long shot, but any chance elites can book premium econ for free? Really enjoyed that perk while it lasted.

sdsearch
sdsearch (@guest_712284)
January 26, 2019 10:39

Only on flights where the Premium Economy seats are sold as MCE (Main Cabin Extra) Economy seats, like when a plane with Premium Economy is used domestically. In that case, since MCE is free for (Plat and above) AA elites, Premium Economy seats sold as MCE would be free.

Russ B
Russ B (@guest_712395)
January 26, 2019 16:44

I think that’s what I had in mind – the A330 transcons between PHL and SFO. As long as that continues, I’ll be a happy in my specific niche bubble.

TheMechE
TheMechE (@guest_711483)
January 24, 2019 19:16

Premium economy still not showing up for booking award flight on their website for me. Wonder if you can call to check availability?

culdeus
culdeus (@guest_711579)
January 24, 2019 21:30

yes, i called in and they could book it and check rates

Tall T
Tall T (@guest_711407)
January 24, 2019 17:02

It’s nice to see them add more uses for AA miles so a positive change. Knowing AA it will be soon be coupled with a negative increase in cost of business or all other award charges.

Chucks
Chucks (@guest_711826)
January 25, 2019 12:37

Expansion of premium economy already means upgrades “to the next class of service” become worth significantly less on a lot of flights, as you can now no longer buy a cheap economy seat and bump to business/first. Well, scratch “no longer”- “basic economy” already prohibits you from an upgrade.

We’ve gone from a possible F/J upgrade from the cheapest economy seat to an economy seat to now needing a premium economy seat. End result is needing to spend more to get a smaller upgrade. I understand the business reasoning, but I’ve become totally uninterested in being loyal to any carrier beyond ticket price.

Sevillada
Sevillada (@guest_711402)
January 24, 2019 16:52

Damn, no availability for my flight (CDG-DFW)

culdeus
culdeus (@guest_711578)
January 24, 2019 21:30

you need to call in to book today

Josh
Josh (@guest_711390)
January 24, 2019 16:34

Now we know the (or one of) reason for the previous bump in cost for business class to Hawaii. 50k in premium economy is…not a great value. It is actually more than the previous business cost (40k) and only 5k less than the new price.

Jacob Hurley
Jacob Hurley (@guest_711378)
January 24, 2019 16:03

 William Charles I believe you have a typo here.

30,000 miles in economy
40,000 miles in premium economy
57,500 in economy

Nick
Nick (@guest_711376)
January 24, 2019 16:02

Do we know how it books for domestic connections?

sdsearch
sdsearch (@guest_711639)
January 24, 2019 23:20

Most AA domestic connections are on single-aisle domestic planes, which don’t have (and are not scheduled to ever get) Premium Economy. You have to find an international plane that happens to flying domestically to find Premium Economy on a domestic AA flight. So a lot of the top lines of this chart are “just in case”, and should not imply that you are likely to find Premium Economy on most flights to those destinations.

In fact, if you look at the chart, you’ll see it doesn’t have pricing for Premium Economy on lower 48 domestic flights, presumably because are no regularly scheduled flights within the lower 48 that fly planes with Premium Economy seats actually booked as Premium Economy seats.

Sometimes when international AA planes happen to fly domestically “by chance”, AA will treat them as fewer cabins than there actually are, and thus there may be Premium Economy seats in such a case which are sold as MCE seats within regular Economy for that particular domestic flight. So if doing awards on such flights, you would not have to pay Premium Economy fares (if people paying cash for seats are not buying them as Premium Economy).