American Airlines renames Express Seats as Preferred Seats
FORT WORTH, Texas —
American Airlines has expanded and renamed its Express Seats offering, now called Preferred Seats. The expanded seat choice is now available to all American Airlines customers 24 hours prior to departure through all of American’s direct booking channels including AA.com, AA.com Mobile, self-service check-in machines, American’s phone reservations, and via travel agencies with a direct connect link to American’s fares and schedules.
Preferred Seats provide customers the option to select and reserve more desirable seats, with prices beginning at $4 per segment and varying based on length of flight and time of day.
Preferred Seats are now complimentary for Elite and full-fare customers and their companion traveler(s) on the same reservation, including AAdvantage Executive Platinum, Platinum, and Gold members; Full-fare customers, AAirPass and oneworld elite customers.
Elite and full-fare customers will also continue to have exclusive access to certain more desirable seats, including toward the front of the plane, available 331 days in advance. These seats are now called Preferred Plus Seats.
Preferred Seats are also complimentary for active duty military personnel and their family members traveling on the same reservation.
Order by Time Order by Popularity
9 Comments
Login to comment
1
Kwaabish
Now only if AA could make its entire trip more "preferable" in the eyes of trans-Pacific travellers... I still prefer Asian carriers (SQ, NH, JL, CX) over AA, DL or UA...
0
gogogo
How is this relevant to Japan? This is only for US domestic flights and US citizens!?
Moderator
Many of our readers in Japan and abroad fly all over the world with American Airlines. It is certainly not just for U.S. citizens.
0
Kwaabish
One of the rare times I'll side with the Mods. Non-US citizens who are members of AAdvantage programmes can utilize this service.
-1
gogogo
Kwaabish; Don't need need a US address to register? Last time I checked you did.
0
Kwaabish
gogogo:
One example: Japanese (or other foreign nationals) who are in the US with valid visas (such as E, H-1B, L, etc.) or who are permanent residents would have US addresses.
0
beergardenpro
@gogogo Having lived in Japan for 8 years but now in residing in Tennessee I often read news on this website.
FYI, this information wasnt on the local news website I read, Tennessean.com, nor could I find an article about it after searching on USATODAY.com. Thanks JapanToday.
Is it relevant to Japan and do you need a US address?
Uhm, not sure what part of this you didnt understand....."The expanded seat choice is now available to all American Airlines customers 24 hours prior to departure through all of American"s direct booking channels including AA.com, AA.com Mobile, self-service check-in machines, America's phone reservations, and via travel agencies with a direct connect link to American's fares and schedules."
0
gogogo
beergardenpro: Thanks for the info, I'm not trying to be ignorant here, and I'm glad it helped you, but AA.com is only for the US, so is the mobile site, the seats are domestic only. If I wanted to use this I would have to buy a domestic ticket, I can not do that from the AA.com WITHOUT a US address. The only other way would be to buy a domestic ticket from Japan and hope that it available to "upgrade" on the AA.com site without a US address, but it is highly unlikely from my experience overseas issued tickets are on a different seat category.
Their marketing is very clever to make it sound like there are no restrictions, but there always is.
0
Kwaabish
gogogo,
I don't think that seat selection processes are limited to domestic flights. I seem to recall that my colleagues and I bought and selected seats for an LAX-NRT-ORD flight on AA through AA.com. (Not by choice, I would have much more preferred to have flown NH instead)
Man... it's getting tiring how AA is trying to put a good spin on various "new programmes" which seem to actually limit what many passengers had access to all along in the past...
I'm already pissed about how AA is planning to limit the chances of AAdvantage members achieving lifetime elite status by restricting the eligible miles which would get counted towards the one million/two million miler's club. (beginning December 1, 2011)
Back to top