Originally Posted by
jordyn
Well, that explains a lot about airline product quality. :-)
I have to admit, I've always found the option of a real PE offering to be quite attractive, assuming the quality is good. I don't mind paying a reasonable premium for comfort
Indeed, it's great to have the option. That said, the one time I paid to sit in W instead of Y (on BA), I wasn't particularly happy; the comfort difference is not all that significant. But that's good from the airline's point of view; I can't imagine anyone who is thinking about paying for J saying "but there's premium economy; that's a good enough substitute for J".
On the other hand, when considered in the context of the recent reduction in the number of SWUs for (most) EXPs, it's really a striking devaluation of EXP benefits. Going from either 8 to 4 SWUs or limiting the SWUs from going Y->PE or PE->J would have seemed fairly reasonable to me, but doing them both in close order is really a significant clawback in benefits, and a sneaky one to boot given that it's broken into two separate-seeming announcements.
I
hope that there's some less-than-SWU option for upgrading into W. I think making 500 mile upgrades usable to upgrade into W would make a lot of sense, and I don't think it's
completely unrealistic. But I'm probably too optimistic.
For mileage upgrades, I'd expect the
participating airline awards to be a good model for the expected mileage to upgrade from premium economy to business (ie 12,500 miles with no copay North America to Europe). They may not be a model for discount economy to premium economy or for the effect on discount economy to business upgrades, though, since AA miles can't currently be used for upgrades like that on BA or any other airline with premium economy.