Even though US airlines have long had partner airlines that offer premium economy cabins, historically they haven't allowed miles to be redeemed for that cabin. I suspect it's because the US airlines didn't have a premium economy product of their own, so it was easier to just not offer that redemption option. Well, American and…
Continue reading: You Can Now Redeem Delta Miles For Premium Economy… But It’s Expensive
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Given that Aeroplan charges fuel surcharges on the only airline that you can redeem premium economy, the gap isn't that far apart.
38k plus 300 USD isn't far off from 55k plus 20 USD
Which means if AA copies and United copies we will see a devalue again when they slot PE into their award charts. Not good
@Jeff - "Which means if AA copies and United"
"Which means WHEN United copies followed by American..."
Fixed it for ya'! 🙂
What's sad is I earned a lot of these frequent flyer miles when transatlantic business class awards were 100K miles ROUND TRIP!
I flew premium economy on Virgin two weeks ago; Los Angeles-London, London-Detroit.
The outbound was on a gorgeous 787 with excellent staff. Best of all was the menu dining and high-quality booze in the Virgin lounge before the flight. I compared it to flying domestic-style first-class on a flight to Hawaii. You can sleep decent if you had enough to drink and bring aboard your own pillow and blanket.
The return was on an older A330. Unfortunately, the return in premium economy is significantly less, umm, premium. In fact, the catering out of Los Angeles was, to my surprise, better than London. My food was completely cold, if not almost semi-frozen. Service was much less attendant -- it was very difficult getting drink refills on alcohol. Also, the A330 doesn't have wireless internet.
Still, both experiences were better than economy. Especially on a paid airfare of $1,200. What was most frustrating, however, is the difficulty in booking seats and so forth when flying Virgin on a Delta ticket.
I'm on Velocity, so could Delta frequent flyers use their points to redeem on Virgin flights instead and would that be cheaper?
For Virgin Atlantic, I am not sure where you are getting your mile prices from? I price out Newark to London and RT in Economy is 35k (or 17.5k one way) and 55K (27.5K one way) in premium economy. Maybe I am not going northeast enough? But what kills Virgin Atlantic's redemption for Premium Economy is the $810 you pay in taxes, round trip. That's insane. Same ticket on Delta would yes be 110K miles but only 255 in taxes. So the difference in taxes is $555, which means for 55,000 extra Delta miles (or about 1 point per dollar), compared to Virgin Atlantic, is it worth just paying Delta miles to cover the taxes or paying the taxes out of pocket. While I don't value Delta miles quite as low as a point per dollar, I think it's a decent enough redemption for Delta. IMO.