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American Airlines Basic Economy Fares Go International

JT Genter
Articles
JT Genter is a digital nomad who travels full-time.
June 14, 2017
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3 min read
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American Airlines Basic Economy Fares Go International
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Last week, American Airlines nearly doubled its number of basic economy routes. Today, the airline is going international with these new bare-bones fares, which brings the total number of routes 'featuring' basic economy to 69. One peculiarity of this extension — all 25 new routes are between US and four Canadian cities: Calgary (YYC), Montreal (YUL), Toronto (YYZ) and Vancouver (YVR).

Just yesterday, it was announced that United, which has already made basic economy available on all domestic flights, is planning on expanding basic economy to Hawaii and Latin America. While AA has been slower to roll-out basic economy fares overall, it seems the airline was eager be first out of the gate with these additional revenue-generating fares.

Basic economy fares seems to be loaded onto these routes starting this Saturday, June 17:

AA Basic Economy TPA-YVR

With these 25 new routes added, AA's basic economy map is starting to look a lot more crowded:

List of origin/destination pairings with basic economy fares. Note that American Airlines doesn't operate nonstops on all of these routes. Image courtesy of Great Circle Mapper.
List of origin/destination pairings with basic economy fares. Note that American Airlines doesn't operate nonstops on all of these routes. Image courtesy of Great Circle Mapper.

For those keeping score at home, that's now 20 airports that have basic economy fares. The new list of most-affected cities is now: Amarillo (AMA, 15 destinations); Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW, 15); Midland (MAF, 14); Calgary (YYC, 12) and Miami (MIA, 11).

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As a reminder for those who are unaware, travelers who book American Airlines basic economy fares don't get seat assignments, board in the last group (Group 9), aren't allowed to bring a carry-on bag, earn a reduced amount of elite-qualifying miles, can't get upgrades and can't change these flights.

With that said, you can jump to boarding Group 5, earn back your carry-on bag and get a free checked bag on these basic economy fares just by having a co-branded card such as the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard or the CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum Select World Mastercard.

The information for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum card and CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Featured image by JT Genter