Originally Posted by
mvoight
Are you sure these are limited to elites? Preferred seats are generally open to those booking full Y or using an Aanytime award (books as Y). Is this different when using the BC section for a flight sold as 2 class? I thought they were simply treated as "preferred" seats and open to anyone entitled to a preferred seat (not just elites)
I'm sure you're right. What I did was log out of aa.com, then go look at flight schedules for the two flights. the JFK-MIA showed plenty of available "J" seats, while the ORD-DFW flight showed none. I logged in, and the seat map was identical on JFK-MIA but entirely blocked out on ORD-DFW. I don't know under what circumstances they unblock, but I would imagine full Y/B, AAnytime award or AAirpass would qualify, in addition to elite level status.