Until now, the Main Cabin Extra product only offered a little extra leg room and not much else. I’m not particularly tall so I never really saw the point in paying more for Main Cabin Extra seats. Sure the extra leg room is nice, but there is no way I’d pay an additional $30-$70 just for a few extra inches of leg room.
However, earlier this year American announced that chances to the Main Cabin Extra product were on the way. Originally American planned on introducing these changes in the Spring of 2018, but the changes ended up getting delayed until summer. Then finally on June 5th 2018 the chances to the product came.
Improvements To Main Cabin Extra Cabin Effective June 5, 2018
Chances are unless you follow American Airlines closely you would have never heard about these changes. That’s because they’ve very quietly rolled out this product enhancement. Likewise, if you’ve flown Main Cabin Extra since June 5th you probably haven’t heard the flight attendants offering up free drinks. From my experience very few passengers seem to know that free alcohol is available when sitting in Main Cabin Extra seats. However, per American’s website Main Cabin Extra seats now offer the following benefits.
As you can see, in addition to free alcoholic beverages, Main Cabin Extra passengers also receive access to Group 5 boarding, but other than that there is little difference between Main Cabin Extra seats and standard economy seats.
Booking American Airline Main Cabin Extra Seats
Booking a Main Cabin Extra seat is a bit different than selecting a First Class fare for example. Main Cabin Extra is simply an add-on to an Economy class fare rather than a separate product. So to book a MCE seat you begin by booking a standard economy class fare. From there you’ll have the option to select your seats.
On shorter domestic flights Main Cabin Extra seats only cost about $34 each way.
However, Main Cabin Extra seats become even more expensive when trying to book longer distance domestic flights. Below are the results of a mid-week search between Chicago and Los Angeles. Keep in mind these prices are one-way only. The cost to pick an MCE seat on the way home remained consistent.
Luckily, those with American Airlines Platinum and above status (Platinum Pro & Executive Platinum) can select Main Cabin Seats for free at the time of booking. This is what the same (ORD-LAX) seat map looked liked when I logged into my AAdvantage account.
As you can see I receive the same benefits listed as if I were paying for the seat, but there is no additional fee for selecting these seats.
Pro Tip: Typically elites select these seats at booking, but end up getting upgraded at the gate. This means there are usually MCE seats available either shortly after checking into the flight or when arriving at the gate. Typically gate agents give these seats away for free so it never hurts to ask for a better seat when you get to the gate!
My American Airlines Main Cabin Extra Experience
I happened to fly American Airlines Main Cabin Extra just a few weeks after American implemented these changes. So as the flight attendants began circulating the cabin to take drink orders I began checking out the in-flight beverage menu.
In Main Cabin Extra all wine, sparkling wine, spirits, and beer are now complimentary. Additionally, as far as I can tell, there are no limits to how many complimentary drinks each customer can order. Obviously flight attendants have the ability to cut off any passenger they feel is over-served, but beyond that I don’t think there are any limits.
On my flight I opted for a Tito’s Vodka and a can of Dasani Sparkling Lime to make a vodka soda of sorts.
A few moments after dropping off my beverages the flight attendant returned to drop off the in-flight snack.
Of course I opted for the Biscoff cookies over the bag of lightly salted pretzels. In addition to the Biscoff cookies I also ordered the turkey sandwich. I only ordered the sandwich because paid snack are complimentary for Executive Platinum customers on flights over 3 hours.
The sandwich was actually quite good, but I’ve never had to work so hard to unwrap food from plastic wrap. There must have been three separate layers of plastic wrap surrounding my turkey sandwich.
Final Thoughts
I’m happy that American Airlines made this change. I’ve long wondered what the benefit of paying more for a Main Cabin Extra seat actually is. Sure the extra leg room is nice, but is it really worth the extra cost? I’m sure it’s a lot easier to justify paying a fee for a premium seat if you think you’re at least going to get a few drinks out of it.
I’m actually very interested to see if more people pay for MCE now that there is a clear benefit of doing so. In the past I suspect many of the customers paying for MCE seats were American elites. Going forward I wonder if American elites will have a harder time selecting Main Cabin Extra seats.
