Traveling with a family using points and miles means that each adult has to earn miles for more than one person, which can put a damper on your travel plans. However, while singles and empty nesters jetset around the world in their fancy first-class seats, traveling in economy has allowed me to stretch my miles to see more of the world despite doing the heavy lifting for more than one flyer.

Booking economy flights with Capital One Venture Miles has become an important part of our travel budgeting strategy since they’ve added a suite of helpful transfer partners.

Delta was the first to sell a sub-economy cabin class titled Basic Economy in 2012. United followed suit last year, so it should be no surprise that American Airlines has also just jumped on the bandwagon. American Basic Economy fares will go on sale February 10.

As restrictions in Basic Economy vary between the three legacy carriers, today I'm going to go over what Basic Economy is for each of them, as well as how to identify a fare as Basic Economy when searching through various methods.