This is the second in a series of articles that will help you get to you destination in comfort, while maintaining a frugal budget.  

Many international carriers have recently introduced a class of service in between Economy and Business Class that, for just a few dollars more than the price of a coach ticket, offers a stripped down business class experience. This class of service, which has names such as Premium Economy, Economy Plus, or Prem+, offers amenities such as extra legroom, extra seat width, adjustable headrests, and laptop power ports.  Some go as far as offering dedicated check-in lines, airport lounge access and upgraded food.

The following airlines offer premium economy cabins on their flights to New York: Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, British Airways, EVA, Icelandair, OpenSkies, SAS Scandinavian, United Airlines, Virgin America, and Virgin Atlantic.  We recently tried OpenSkies' Prem+ class between New York and Paris and were quite impressed with their inflight service.  Their seats, based on British Airways' previous generation "cradle" business class seats, are extremely spacious and are comparable to the non-lie-flat business class seats offered by American, Delta and United.  We were also impressed with Thai Airways' Premium Economy offering, which has 2 inches of extra width, 12 inches of additional legroom and a 135° angle of recline. Note that Los Angeles is the only US destination that offers Thai's Premium Economy class.

Keep in mind that all premium economy sections are not created equal, and there are fairly large variations across airlines.  For instance, Icelandair's Economy Comfort class seat, while 2 inches wider than a standard seat, actually has less legroom that JetBlue's coach offerings.  And United Airlines' Economy Plus offers a few more inches of legroom, but not the upgraded seat or other amenities of a proper premium economy cabin.

Our take:  If your employer's travel policy doesn't allow Business Class travel (or it is simply too expensive), Premium Economy can be a good option when priced correctly.  Keeping in mind the variation across airlines, our broad rule of thumb is that Premium Economy is worth when priced 15% above the price of a coach ticket for low-feature airlines (such as United and Icelandair) and 30% above a comparable coach ticket for high features airlines such as OpenSkies and Thai.