(photo courtesy of NerdWallet)

If I can make this happen with my long-haul travels, I will nearly always try to book something slightly above economy. With United, the airline I’m flying most often, that would be their economy plus seats or premium economy. I’ve experienced something similar on Lufthansa, which like United is part of the Star Alliance network. On a shorter flight to Cancun, I’ve been on United’s business class, which was probably the same as their premium economy in terms of space.

There probably won’t be many chances for me to fly in business or first, even with all the flight booking hack strategies I’m learning and all the travel I’ve done to accumulate miles. But that is fine with me. I consider business class travel (where you have lie-flat seats and elevated food and drink) an occasionally treat, and I’ll write about that soon with my flight on British Airways.

For the flight RAS and I took from Charlotte to Munich and our river cruise, we booked American's premium economy. It had better fares at the time, and I always want to try other carriers than United. The pricing was right to try their premium economy seats, and for the most part, I’m glad we did.

Seats and space

Like the Lufthansa seats I had for my trip last year, these leather seats offered ample room, with nineteen inches of width, which is roughly one to two more than regular economy seats. Another measurement, pitch, indicates the distance between one seatback and another. The American premium economy seats have 38 inches, offering plenty of legroom and reclining space.  Speaking of reclining, the seats move back quite deeply with head and footrests that make the necessary overnight sleep more achievable.

One problem with premium economy seats are the footrest bars, which prevent the usual storage of a carry-on bag like a backpack or tote. RAS and I solved that issue by getting everything we needed, then stored the bags in the overhead bin. But we were satisfied with the amount of space that we could use for storage. I usually use the pockets in the seatback to have everything I need, and these worked just fine for me. It was also a bonus to have a toiletry kit, more plush blanket and curved pillow for sleeping.

Entertainment and devices

As far as electronics and entertainment are concerned, we had a sizable personal screen on the seatback, which was about has large as the one on my laptop. It’s controlled with either touchscreen capability or a remote control. There is a surprising variety of movies, television shows and audio programs to watch, which I availed myself to before dinner and sleeping. A set of headphones, while somewhat pinching on one ear, allowed me to hear the content well. 

The only problem with the console holding the remote was its location – hidden between the seats, with a difficult-to-locate USB and USB-C outlets. Even though the outlets were illuminated, it was still difficult to plug our devices in for power. We needed to use the lights on our phones just to figure out how to connect them.

The food and drink

This was probably the most disappointing aspect of the premium economy experience. The only other comparison I have is to the Lufthansa flight, where I had a decent dinner and breakfast the next day, plus some good wine to accompany the first meal. In this case, we were given drinks, but the wine was generic and in a box. Now, I’m not trying to be snobby here, but this wasn’t a very good white at all.

What was even worse was the dinner I chose – a vegetable paella, which was gummy and tasteless. I could only muster three bites before I gave up on it. RAS fared much better with a chicken with cream sauce, and I almost wanted to share it with him. At least our cheesecake dessert was quite good.  For breakfast, I went with a fruit plate, while he chose a frittata. Both were adequate to get us going for the rest of our trip and heading into Munich for the day.

So, was American Airlines’ premium economy class worth the extra cost? If you disregard the food and drink, it was.