chicagoflyer1976

I'd been looking at some premium economy fares from Chicago to Europe for next fall. On Saturday fares were around 1,200 - 1,500, now they are about 2,200 - 2,500. Why the big increase?

fotographer

just wait , you have plenty of time, I have been checking fares to BOM, they went from around $3000, (J) to over $6000 this morning across all OW partners
Seems like sales have gone, probably will see better fares later this week
but your not traveling until next fall, just wait and keep track, I have seen fares as cheap as $400 and up

teemuflyer

Like @fotographer says, keep checking, or even better, set up google flights price tracking, and you'll get notified when the there is a price change in either direction and you'll also get a history of the pricing (from when you set up the tracking).

3Cforme

What dates, to what destination in Europe?

xliioper

Most are in the $1300 - $1400 range (LHR,CDG,MAD,FCO,VCE). Some of them require Mon-Thu departures (if you are looking to depart Fri-Sun, you will pay more). The only one I see for close to $2400 is DUB. BCN and ATH are in the $1700 - $1800 range. If you use Google Flights in map view, you can look at multiple airports at once and compare fares.

chicagoflyer1976

I was looking at MUC. I do have the google alerts - that's how I actually saw they had jumped!
I tried to upload a screenshot (went from 1,188 to 2,210), but that doesn't seem to work. We can put men on the moon but we can't make it easy to drag and drop an image.

teemuflyer

Octoberfest?

xliioper

Was assuming you were looking at the non-stop routes out of ORD. Also assumed that "Europe" meant more than just one city. PE fares available to MUC from $1538 out of MKE and SBN in early October, and $1181 in late October. Can play hidden city games on return to MKE.

Zacnlinc

What gives with the PE pricing AA? Just checked SFO-LAX-HKG RT and asking price is 2K. But LAX-HKG RT is just 1K. Really... But for same flight in MC, it's $620-ish vs. $550-ish respectively. RIGHT!!!

potus18

Those SFO-LAX legs connecting to a PE flight are still being priced as full-fare Y

Reetmafreen

enpremiere

AA must have just realized that the recent profit reports went public. Said RM, "quick, let's raise PE fares and that will really pad our bottom line."

Disclaimer: Not based on actual facts and absolutely misconstrued.

Blueboys999

At times PE pricing seems excessively high but I've noticed that I can often buy AA PE flights on ba.com much cheaper.

SeattleDavid

I think this is more of an AA IT problem than an rip-off pricing problem. AA.com seems to have great difficulty seeing and pricing PE fares and Google flights doesn't seem to do any better.

But ba.com and Expedia seem to be able to sort through to the correct fares. Just yesterday MFR-LHR return on aa.com was pricing at $2300 on aa.com, but at $1500 on Expedia. Two weeks ago my corporate TA (both by phone with AA and using their web tools) could only get $2300 on MFR-LHR, while I booked it myself for $1450 (same flights, same dates).

Regularly I see aa.com list no fare at all for PE on the non-stop from PHX-LHR or LAX-LHR, yet Expedia offers a very reasonable P fare just fine.

And now that PE awards are available I see that aa.com is willing to offer me Anytime awards in PE flights where it won't even offer me a $ fare.

It is such a mess that I do not believe this can be deliberate – I think the connection between inventory, fares and IT is just broken.

scubadu

I tend to agree that PE pricing does seem quite high. I often see bloggers claim that PE is often "only a couple hundred dollars" more than standard economy. However, I'm rarely seeing that to be the case these days.

Here is a simple example for DFW to FCO (Rome) for Sept 19th to Sept 26th:




Note that the premium for paid business over PE is just ~28% ($838) vs. the premium for going from standard economy to PE is ~91% ($1390). Yikes!

I've checked this across shoulder seasons, etc. It appears AA is only selling W fares (instead of P) and yet the seat map is wide open (yea, I know, I know, spare me the "Seat maps aren't..." song and dance)

I was kind of excited about PE. It's actually a great product for my wife and I. We really aren't as obsessed with J as many FTer's are and this seemed like a nice compromise, but the pricing just strikes me as way, way out of whack...

Regards