ron-val-ron

I recently found it impossible to book the routing I wanted via the online booking engine at aa.com for a domestic award ticket. Nothing fancy - it wouldn't give me the non-stop routing even though I was using a 50k award. I called the 800 number (platinum) and begged my case, but she charged me $20 anyway. So I just went to dispute the charge to my credit card with Amex and here's what came up:

Please contact the airline directly with any questions you may have or to dispute the charges. We realize this may not be the response you hoped for, but trust you will understand that we must abide by the merchant's policies.

I guess AA got so sick of people using this as a backhanded complaint mechanism that they got Amex to agree to shut off any and all disputes of booking charges. You literally cannot dispute this charge. Cute.

Anyone have any insight on this or encountered it with other card companies? Apologies if this has been dealt with before on the boards - I did a search but couldn't find anything.