Citi companion ticket issues and questions (consolidated)

[sebAAs]

I recently used a Citi companion cert (only redeemable over the phone) and was charged a "Telephone ticketing service" fee of $30. Is this correct? Is there any way that I could have avoided that charge? Thanks for your help.

[wlciii]

Yep, it's correct. Even when its impossible to book on-line such as you situation AA still charges the fee. I have never been successful in getting them to waive it because the ticketed has to be booked over the phone.

[savvy]

Hi...

OK so both my husband and I have been using our Citi AAdvantage card as our AA mileage card for years. They offered each of us an opportunity to upgrade from a gold card to a Platinum card 7/07. We each accepted as it was only $10 more for the annual fee, but promised a lower introductory rate and a free companion ticket. So both he and I had separate letters to upgrade so we each should have received 1 companion ticket.

Well, that was 7/07, by 12/07 there was still no sign of companion tix for either of us. So I started calling customer service and kept getting the run-around. They said they were on the way, they re-ordered them, they were on the way, oh wait, they re-ordered them again. Mind you this was me calling ever 3-5 weeks from December until NOW! I have spoken to every "manager" they have.

Finally I got a manager at Citi that followed through and we got our companion tix last week. But here is the kicker---they expire 6/1/08!! So we have just over 2 months to use them. This does not seem right at all to me. All the other airlines I have dealt with have a minimum of 1 year for their companion tix to expire (if they expire at all). Am I wrong in thinking that this is an error.

Plus our offer came in 6/07 and we got our cards 7/07 so had we gotten our companion tickets on time (with a one year expiration date) they should have expired 6/08 (or thereabouts). seems fishy to me. I called Citi the same "manager" who sent them out and she said there was nothing she could do for me about the dates.

So I am hoping there are others out there that have received companion tix in the past that can tell me if 2 months is the usual expiration time on these.

Thanks!

savvy

[AA2070]

Don't worry, they are generally useless anyway.

You can only use them on H, L, K, W, M, and V fares, and the 'free' ticket doesn't earn any miles and you can't upgrade. You can generally get two N or S tickets for less than the price of one of the the tickets from the allowed classes, so this really isn't much of a benefit at all.

[ESpen36]

The companion tickets are worthless. Very difficult to use (minimum fares required, certain booking classes only) and the companion doesn't get miles. Just forget about it.

And yes, you will get them MONTHS (in my case 6-8 months) after you sign up for the offer.

[ESpen36]

AA2070 beat me to it!

[tom911]

Can't say I'm impressed with Citi customer service. I was due to be credited 5,000 bonus miles at the one year anniversary of my AAdvantage card back in September. I've called them several times over the months, received letters that the miles would be credited, and even sent one of their letters back to them when the miles didn't credit. They sent me another letter promising the miles would post again (they didn't). None of that seemed to work. I called again last week and was told the miles would credit two days later. They finally posted 6 months late.

[virmaior]

I must say I thoroughly agree with everyone who says the companion fare feature is worthless. I called today to ask about fares for thanksgiving (admittedly bad timing).


The best they could for LGA <-> IND 11/26 - 11/30 was $763.00 for 2 tickets. I believe I've seen $800 for 2 tickets today on expedia et al.

I called two weeks ago about NYC <-> LAX 12/24 - 1/4 and they told me $980. I bought two tickets for less than that with divergent itineraries.