Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
Make the booking and then come back a few minutes later.
[i]In order to access Premium Class seats, American’s elites cannot reserve them during the booking process – they need to make the booking, wait for the ticket to issue and their status to register in Alaska’s systems (generally a few minuts [sic]) and then select their seats if eligible. Choosing a premium class seat prior to ticketing results in a charge for that seat.
That is interesting since the opposite is not true. Making a dummy booking today on AA, as a guest with my AS FF#, I was able to select MCE seats during the booking process, without fee, before the payment screen.
James