These days the best flight deals from the US to Europe can occasionally hover around the $400 mark, but $600 and up is the new norm in economy. However, every once in a while, if you’re willing to spend just a bit more – you can seriously upgrade your travels with Premium Economy. Premium puts you in bigger, better, wider seats with more recline and also puts you just one step from upgrading to business class. There are some fantastic deals out at the moment, which put comfortable travel across the Atlantic within reach…
The Deals
British Airways and American Airlines are pushing out their premium economy offering to the world. American has just updated many of their planes with legitimately new and nice premium economy seats, rivaling the best out there. Both seats will offer legitimate comfort you can sleep in with benefits and added service. These deals work from New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago. Other cities may also be available. Best of all, if you have upgrade certificates or miles, these deals can be upgraded to business class with relative ease.
The Dates
These deals are around in April and May, and then return again in late August, September, October, November and December. Not every single date will be available, but there are lots of options in each month for both shorter and longer trips.
How To Book
Finding the best deals should be easy, so we’ve made handy links taking you directly to the best prices for each city pair. Simply click the link and play with dates, bearing in mind this crucial tip for using Google Flights. Here are the best round trip deals, like: $790 New York to Barcelona, $790 Miami to Barcelona, $827 New York to Paris, $843 New York to Rome, $880 Miami to Paris, $886 Boston to Venice, $920 Los Angeles to Barcelona, $999 Chicago to Madrid. Find dates that work and book directly with American Airlines or British Airways.
How To Upgrade
If you want to upgrade these tickets using points or upgrade certificates – you must book with the airline you’d like to upgrade with. So if you want to use British Airways Avios, you need to book via British Airways. If you want to upgrade using American Airlines certificates, you’ll need to book via American Airlines. Look up space for upgrades and then call to book! Here’s a guide to American Airlines upgrades, and one for British Airways too.
Unless I misunderstand AA’s published upgrade chart, wouldn’t these incur the same upgrade cost (miles & dollars) as the economy fare?
Warning: I bought a PE ticket “p” class on AA ticket stock on flights operated by Iberia. It is not possible to upgrade these tickets using AA miles even though they are AA tickets. Iberia has no mechanism in place to process an upgrade with miles. I was told the only way to upgrade these tickets is to DOWNGRADE to Economy y or b fares and then upgrade o business. Pretty much BS that you can’t upgrade PE tickets on Iberia.
@brendan I suppose if you downgrade to Economy , them they would incur the same cost to upgrade. Does it make sense to charge the same for an upgrade from Economy when you already paid for PE? I guess AA thinks so.
When you post stuff like this, would you be so kind as to also list EQD and EQM for AA EXP? Thank you in advance my friend.
Hey Carlos, Sounds like a great suggestion. I’m usually very limited in time when writing these up, so I can’t promise I’ll be able to do this all the time, but I appreciate your suggestion and will endeavor to! Enjoy the weekend.