Starwood Preferred Guest: 1:1 (if you transfer 20,000 Starpoints, you'll receive a 5,000-mile bonus).

American Express Membership Rewards: 1:1.

If you don't have many Flying Blue Miles, you can transfer points from many major programs at the following rates: If you're lucky, you'd need just 57,500 miles to fly in business, only a 12,000-mile difference from premium economy, and that gets you a fully flat bed, elevated food and service and more. However, it's likely going to be tough to find awards at those rates, considering the amount of variability the new award prices have. For example, under the new chart you theoretically can book the JFK-CDG leg for 45,500 Flying Blue Miles, but you should be able to book a flight from JFK all the way to Frankfurt (FRA) for just 42,500 miles.

Since the flight, Air France has changed its award chart, so now award prices are based off of many factors including demand on a given flight. The $326 yielded 1,630 Membership Rewards points, worth about $31, according to TPG's valuations. Taxes and fees were paid for with the The Platinum Card® from American Express, which earns 5x points on airfare purchased directly from the airlines. We transferred the required points from American Express Membership Rewards. We ended up booking with 62,500 Flying Blue Miles and had to pay $326 in taxes and fees, but the ticket was going for about $2,200 in cash, so we were still getting a good redemption with 3.5 cents per point.

Since we were booking these flights at the last minute - only a week before I needed to be in Germany - we didn't get the best rate. All three of the big US airlines have either introduced it or are planning to, while many of the big European carriers like British Airways, Iberia and Virgin Atlantic have seats in the premium economy cabin that are more or less like the ones you'd find in domestic first class.Ĭurious how it would be to make the hop across the Atlantic in a premium economy cabin, I worked the experience into a flight I needed to get to Frankfurt (FRA) for a work event - I settled on flying Air France's premium economy from New York-JFK to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and then taking a connection to Germany. Premium economy is becoming more and more prevalent.

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available.

Air canada premium economy 777 300er