Telephone Ticketing Fee --> Increased to $25

[Animgif]

Booked two award tickets yesterday and the fee was $20...booked another today and it was $25. I haven't seen any notification of a rate increase (and searched here). Did I just miss it?

[JY1024]

Whoa - I think this is new?

Just checked the AA website and confirmed that it's listed as $25!

http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/re...akeReservation

AAdvantage Ticketing Service Charge

Ticketing Service Charge
(Waived for AAdvantage Executive Platinum® members)
Ticketing Service Charge applies when ticketing via Reservations†: $25

†$30 when ticketing at the Airport or $20 when ticketing at a Travel Center

Making Flight Award Reservations on AAdvantage Participating Carriers or oneworld Airlines

To book award travel on one of our AAdvantage participating carriers, contact Reservations at 1-800-882-8880 (or your local American Airlines office).

<snip>
* A $25 USD award service charge per person applies to AAdvantage award reservations ticketed by our reservations offices, a $20 USD award service charge per person applies to AAdvantage award reservations ticketed by our Travel Centers or a $30 USD award service charge per person applies to AAdvantage award reservations ticketed by our Airport Agents.

Edit to add:

I actually just posted about the phone fee a few days ago in this thread: Phone fee when you can't book online?; you'll see I copied the fee language from the site in my post. Now, the reduced mileage award page has been updated with the new fees:

Old text:

Redemption of Reduced Mileage Awards applies only to bookings made by phone through American Airlines Reservations or through airport or city ticket offices. All such award travel is subject to an additional payment of $20.

New text:

A $25 USD award service charge per person applies to AAdvantage award reservations ticketed by our reservations offices, a $20 USD award service charge per person applies to AAdvantage award reservations ticketed by our Travel Centers or a $30 USD award service charge per person applies to AAdvantage award reservations ticketed by our Airport Agents.

[Animgif]

Yeah, I looked it up online as he told me...I was fairly annoyed as I would have booked this one yesterday as well if I'd known the fee was going up. =/

[Xero]

Ouch!

I dislike AA's practice of charging ticketing fees for transactions that are impossible to do for free online.

Also, I never understood why there are ticketing fees in the Admirals Club.

[mvoight]

Originally Posted by Xero

Ouch!

Also, I never understood why there are ticketing fees in the Admirals Club.

Revenue?

[mvoight]

Originally Posted by Animgif

Yeah, I looked it up online as he told me...I was fairly annoyed as I would have booked this one yesterday as well if I'd known the fee was going up. =/

Did the rate go up today or did you underpay yesterday?

[kebosabi]

Originally Posted by Xero

Ouch!

I dislike that AA's practice of charging ticketing fees for transactions that are impossible to do for free.

Also, I never understood why there are ticketing fees in the Admirals Club.

+1

Jacking up the price for something that's impossible to do online is

[chanp]

I still dont agree with AA's policy of charging a fee for stuff we can NOT do online.

[swag]

At least I can still get the old price by going to a travel center.

Too bad they closed all the travel centers within 1000 miles of here over a decade ago.

[uoficowboy]

Originally Posted by Xero

Ouch!

I dislike AA's practice of charging ticketing fees for transactions that are impossible to do for free online.

Agree completely. The whole lack of notification thing is pretty lame too.

[hillrider]

Complaining here won't do a thing.

Let you thoughts known at http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/escomplaint/es.cfm

I just did, echoing that I think it's an unfair practice that AA charges a fee for transaction it does not allow to take place online for free, and urging the Secretary to exercise his duty under 49 U.S.C. 41712 "Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices" and cause AA to stop it.

Incidentally, the DOT just did this in the case of AA involuntary denied boarding vouchers (same issue--they couldn't be redeemed online so were subject to the fee which the DOT termed an unfair practice).

[Illini_Fan]

Originally Posted by hillrider

Complaining here won't do a thing.

Let you thoughts known at http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/escomplaint/es.cfm
.

Thanks for the link --

[JDiver]

More nickel and diming, in addition to the six air fare increases so far in 2011. Expect more.

[brp]

Originally Posted by hillrider

Complaining here won't do a thing.

Let you thoughts known at http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/escomplaint/es.cfm

I just did, echoing that I think it's an unfair practice that AA charges a fee for transaction it does not allow to take place online for free, and urging the Secretary to exercise his duty under 49 U.S.C. 41712 "Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices" and cause AA to stop it.

Agreed. The change from $20 -> $25 is not the issue. The fact that they have a fee at all for something that can't be done online is. If it were possible online and some folks preferred to talk about it with an agent, the fee is appropriate. But that is not the current situation.

Cheers.

[miamigrad]

Originally Posted by hillrider

Complaining here won't do a thing.

Let you thoughts known at http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/escomplaint/es.cfm

<snip>

I just registered my complaint. I've always thought it was crummy to levy a charge for something I couldn't do online, but hadn't done anything about it ... until now. Thank you for the link.

Now... I wonder how many eagles will get knocked off my rating for registering the complaint.