Originally Posted by
Cloudship
My question is based around whether or not it is worth upgrading to a MCE seat IF you end up with less leg room and no window arm rest. For instance upgrading to an exit row seat where the arm rests rasie up means a wider seat (narrower armrests) while one with tray tables in teh arm rests means a narrower seat, and thus negates (to me anyways) the gain of the little extra legroom.
Except on most planes it's not at all an "upgrade" to choose a non-exit MCE seat, because AA already classifies the exit seats as MCE. So it's just a matter of switching from one MCE seat to another. No change in cost (or lack of cost if you're AA Plat or above).
On the 737-800, they now have it even labeled as "Main Cabin Extra" on the luggage bins above the two exit rows.
Meanwhile, not all non-exit MCE seats have the same legroom. Thus you need to learn as much about the non-exit MCE seats on each plane as you learn about the exit row seats. On some planes the first row MCE may have more legroom than the other rows, on other planes it may not. I don't know if there might even be tray tables in arm rests in the first non-exit row of MCE on some planes?! You could end finding exactly what you were fleeing
if all you learn about is exit rows but not about individual non-exit MCE seats!
Meanwhile, there are still a few AA planes that have some "infinite legroom" exit seats. In those cases, I'd say it a bit more than "a little" extra legroom
.