American Airlines should be close to introducing premium economy awards. They’ve retrofitted much of their widebody fleet of Boeing 777s, 787-9s, and now some 787-8s to offer a premium economy cabin. However they have not had an option to redeem premium economy seats for miles.
I expect to see premium economy awards introduced this month, at least that’s what’s been confirmed to me by two well-placed sources at American.
JonNYC is talking about this as well,
Rumor, unconfirmed, AA to introduce Premium Economy awards quite soon– like end-of-month soon.
Another 788 went in for PE add today, I believe, so it kinda "fits" as it were.
No idea on the exact details.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) January 11, 2019
Unlike United which introduced premium economy awards but has no premium economy award chart I expect that American will update its award charts to reflect the new option.
I believe that premium economy awards will be reasonably priced. Over time it wouldn’t surprise me though to see premium economy make it easier to increase the price of business class awards.
The outstanding questions, in my mind:
- Will American offer premium economy award redemption on partners when they make this new option available?
- What will upgrades look like? I don’t expect we’ll see any change to upgrades at this time, or upgrade awards for premium economy, but I could be proven mistaken. Here’s how United, Delta, and American currently handle premium economy upgrades.
Hopefully not just on crappy AA PY, but also partners like CX.
WHO CARES???
They already have 3 upgraded seat prices in economy leaving the bathroom area, row 13 and rear middle seats as the only bookable no upcharge seats for award travel.
You have to book award travel 11 months in advance in order not to be routed around the world with multiple overnight connections to fly 800 air miles which could be flown non-stop on most carriers including AA. Then they USUALLY change the schedule or aircraft anyway and you loose your seat assignment with NO compensation.
AA is a third world airline that should no longer carry passengers and just stick with Air cargo that is not time sensitive which they have the proper customer service policy for.
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While in concept this would be great to have some middle ground between economy and business it will likely result in long term devaluation of miles. AA will make business awards and upgrades harder to get and/or much more costly. Just wait and see.
“Premium economy” is an oxymoron, like “special ordinary.”
I gotta bad feeling a devaluation via increase J costs is going to be paired with this….