Unlike Delta which no longer publishes award charts at all, and unlike United which doesn’t publish premium economy award pricing American has added premium economy to its published award chart pricing.
Kudos to American here because:
- Premium economy is priced between coach and business class, and reasonably so — for instance saver awards to Europe are 30,000 miles one way in coach and business class 57,500 miles, so they’ve inserted premium economy at 40,000 miles.
- They haven’t used this as an opportunity to increase the price of business class awards at this point.
Here’s the premium economy saver and anytime chart for North America:
What’s more, unlike United which doesn’t seem to make premium economy saver awards available, American has made saver space for premium economy available at the get go. Premium economy saver awards book into the “X” inventory bucket.
However premium economy awards are available for American Airlines travel only. This change does not let you use AAdvantage miles for redeem for premium economy travel on airlines like Japan Airlines, Qantas, or British Airways. (And you cannot use miles with other programs to book American Airlines premium economy awards, or so I’m told.)
There are no changes to American Airlines upgrades at this time. There are no upgrade awards to go from coach to premium economy. I expect those may be offered later in the year. There are also no changes to how upgrades work at this time which is that coach still upgrades to business class.
To search for premium economy awards use American’s new award search tool.
Is it just me or does the tool seem to not be working? It just dumps me to a blank page and nothing happens. Using Google Chrome.
I can’t get it to work either. Have tried 10-12 times using Chrome on nonstop AA A330 flights to Europe from both CLT and PHL. These are aircraft that are supposed to have PE.
How does it book domestically for connections? Y?
@tim A333 does not and will not have PE.
doesn’t work with explorer or Chrome for me
Any quick way to tell what routes have PE?
If I try LHR->RDU I can see some PE awards at 40K miles and some for 75K. Of course, non-stop is 75K. In addition, the UK taxes for PE are the same as for J.
@Fred – Actually, all of AA’s 787-9, 777-200, 777-300ER and A330-200 aircraft have been retrofitted with PE, and they’re in the process of retrofitting 787-8s. As an example, check June 30 PHL-MAD (the flight I need). Plenty of PE seats for sale on the A330, and Expert Flyer shows the award space there, but the new AA award booking tool doesn’t allow it.
@tim – A333s (A330-300) does not and will not have PE. I thought it was a simple statement to understand? LHR is flown with the A333 from both PHL and CLT – isnt that what you asked?
@tim – X is 0 on expertflyer for PHL MAD June 30 and days around it, i.e. there are no saver awards available in PE – anytime awards are available.
Not working for me. I’m awaiting a response from AA as to why not.
Milesaver Business to Hawaii went from 40,000 to 55,000 one way. Milesaver Premium Economy is 50,000. Don’t know about availability but they most certainly raised some business class awards here,.