Premium or MCE Seating on SAAver Award?
 

Hi All,

Am I understanding correctly that there is no way to upgrade to premium seating on a SAAver Award regardless of being willing to spend money or miles or by means of having any AA credit card?

Thanks,

J.

Upgrade
 

You can "upgrade" using miles to sAAver Business/First or AAnytime Business/First if the seats are available - usually its just mile difference, no fee.

Sorry, I should have specified, I am looking to upgrade to premium economy not first class.

Can't.

Your terminology is still confusing.

AA has announced that it will be debuting premium economy, but it hasn't sold any flights with premium economy on them yet.

I presume you mean Main Cabin Extra (MCE), extra legroom seats? (Or other "paid" seats within the normal economy cabin?)

It depends on your status. If you get them for free (Platinum and above), you can select them at booking time or later.

Unfortunately, if you're Gold or with no status, they're not free, and AA has a problem with its IT where it cannot charge you extra seat fees on an award flight, and thus you can choose special seats in advance on an award flight if they're not free for you.

If you have Gold status, I believe MCE becomes free for you at check-in, so you can choose them then.

If you have no status at all with AA, I'm not sure if there's anything you can do before it goes to airport control.


PS: I can't tell what status you have with AA because your FT profile is out of date:

You can always redeem an AAnytime reward - those get free MCE seats...

To the best of my knowledge, Main Cabin Extra has never been a benefit of having an AA Citibank credit card-- just simply Group 1 boarding-- which does not automatically grant a Main Cain Extra seat as part of the Group 1 boarding.

PLT has access to MCE for free, even on award tickets. PE seats are not available on an award ticket. In an effort to position myself for a J seat, if one were to become available, I asked for a J award with a voluntary downgrade to PE. That was a no go. PE seats on award aren't available to AAgents.

Again, what exactly do you mean by PE??? AA hasn't yet created (only announced) a Premium Economy cabin on its own metal planes!

Meanwhile, because AA doesn't yet have its own PE, it doesn't yet support partners' PE on award tickets. It simply doesn't have a PE award letter code or award chart yet (it saw no need for one until it decided to implement its own Premium Economy cabin).

I think you've got the gist of what I was trying to say. Basically, tried to get a Business Saver award flying domestic F with a voluntary downgrade to Premium Economy (YP) on the int'l leg (JL). I knew it was a stretch. The agent told me they can't even see the YP seats to assign and therefore not at all possible.

I guess the hardest part of AA offering Premium Economy is to program the reservations system that was written in the 1970's with 40 year old code...

Seat selection for BA Avios booked SAAver award on AA
 

Maybe I'm missing something, but I just booked a MileSaaver award for an AA flight on BA.com. Once I associated my AA FF details with the booking, I went to choose my seats and noticed there is scarce availability- about 10 economy seats to choose from and no premium economy to speak of. When I go to book the same award flight through AA, suddenly tons of seats become available and ExpertFlyer shows massive availability.

I know AA limits availability and it can open up as departure date nears, but I have never encountered this type of discrepancy.

Does AA limit seat choices for flights on their metal but booked via partners?

EDIT: to clarify, it is a domestic award booked with Avios on AA metal.

I think i may need more caffeine, because i am really not understanding what you're saying. One can not book a MileSAAver award via BA.

If you booked using Avios, which is possible, MileSAAver awards wilk not allow you to select premium or mce seats afaik.

Well, I was under the impression that the only AA awards that are bookable via Avios were MileSaaver, hence me mentioning it. Sorry for the confusion and possible poor wording.

Your second point answers my question. Thanks! (and bummer)

I believe OP does not have OW status. If one does, you can enter it on AA.com and go select MCE seats for free.