bryenz

What seat map, aa.com?

EF's shows one F seat available but it's still 0'ed out across the board. I called the Plat non-desk and got the "It's going to be under airport assignment" spiel...

sipples

If you're on AA394, why don't you get your seat assignment (if possible) but, regardless, stand by for AA398? AA398 leaves a mere 55 minutes before AA394.

Then, in the extremely unlikely event disaster strikes, and you don't fly AA398 or AA394, AA376 leaves a mere 40 minutes after AA394. AA376 currently has 3 unassigned seats.

In other words, you're Platinum and you have three Super 80s all headed between the same two airports and leaving well within a 2 hour window, with a confirmed reservation on the middle flight. I think you're getting a seat, especially if you stand by for the first flight.

Whether you get to New York in time is another question, but the one major factor, weather, looks just fine for Monday morning at both O'Hare and LaGuardia.

bryenz

I will do just that. An excellent suggestion that, believe it or not, I let myself lose sight of. I have no idea why.

JumboD

If you have access to EF, determining load factors based on aa.com is sort of like rubbing two sticks together when you have a blow-torch.

clbish

It was aa.com

swag

Based on my experiences, if you check the online seat map regularly today (say, every hour or two), I'd be surprised if at some point a seat doesn't open up.

And I'd be surprised, if worst case, a PLT gets an IDB.

Plus, flying out of a hub on a Monday morning, there's a good chance that a few connecting pax will misconnect.

Still, the standby for the earlier flight is not a bad suggestion.

And a bit off topic, but FWIW, I was recently on a morning flight that was F0 Y0 from a week prior thru the night before, and when I got to the airport, I was astonished to see that my upgrade had cleared overnight.

Hotel_junkie

I fly ORD-LGA and ORD-LAS all the time. Every time I book I can't get a seat assignment so it appears to be oversold. Every time around the 72 hour mark a seat opens up (oftentimes the Exit Row) because some EXP or PLAT got upgraded. Very rarely does AA oversell a plane and then have to bump someone off the flight involuntarily.

I would just keep on checking each day until your flight. A seat more than likely will open up.

bryenz

I ended up with 19E - not as far back as I thought I'd get stuck with. The flight was completely full and there were a ton of standbys not accommodated, but I don't think they actually bumped anyone.

Jakebeth

Hi all -

Please go easy - I'm WAY out of FT practice, and I can't remember quite how to tease the search engine to do what I want.

It would seem to me from searching, and from this post, that there hasn't been much written about IDB occurrences and policies. I just went through a whopper, though, with five pax, including two small kids and a senior, and issues that aren't otherwise covered in this thread. I don't want to pollute this one, though, if it's all been talked about somewhere else.

Do any of you know of another post out there somewhere, or should I start typing away?

ssing

Start typing away :-) I am curious to learn about your IDB situation.

mvoight

I think the Involuntary issue should have it's own thread.

dstan

Done! Now merged into an existing thread on IDB Order which is already in the Sticky and FAQ.

/Moderator

Jakebeth

I want to be clear that while my situation occurred at AA, I think that it could have occurred with any airline. My personal opinion of AA hasn't yet changed as a result of this situation; I'm waiting to see how AA handles it before I come to any conclusions.

The story is long and messy, so I'm going to try and just give some essentials. I'm also going to leave out the city of origin right now, only because I just sent a letter to AA, and there are three actors to whom I don't want to give an easy opportunity to change their stories before AA corporate has a chance to consider it all.

Approx 3 weeks ago, I was supposed to travel through DFW to MCO; five in my party - two small children and one senior citizen. We were offered a voluntary bump at city of origin, and accepted it with approx 20 minutes to go before departure, in exchange for connecting through ORD, and an assurance from the GA that we would have assigned seats, together, on an ORD-MCO flight approx 4 hours later than originally planned from DFW. I was especially concerned b/c of the children, and the boarding passes he gave us for ORD showed no seat numbers. The GA swore that it was ok, because he had put us in an exit row, and that the GAs in Chicago would be obliged to re-seat us in order to make it legal; he also swore that he had already contacted staff at ORD and received a response assuring all was ok. We took generous comp (in vouchers) for the bump, and flew to ORD.

As I'm sure some of you are now groaning, it was a mistake for me to take this GA at his word. Enough said.

My main reason for sharing the story, however, is b/c of what happened next, as it is an instructive lesson about understanding IDB procedures.

When we arrived at ORD, we quickly learned that we had no seat assignments for the leg to MCO. I begged the GAs to help b/c of the children (aside from having no luggage w/us, etc., we were on our way to Disney and a family member had paid for a costly travel package) but also told them I was just going to stand by the podium and wait, allowing them to work their flight without me constantly badgering.

The GAs offered several hundred $ to pax willing to take a voluntary bump from that flight (ORD-MCO). They announced it once after I got to the gate, and asked a few last-minute stragglers boarding if they were interested. They knew that the outcome was critical to me. Without warning, however, they shut the jet-bridge door and came back to the podium. I was surprised b/c I thought they might go down to the plane and re-ask some of the boarded pax, many of whom I didn't think had even heard the last $ offer.

I simply said to the GA - "What about us?" She responded "well, you're going to have to fly tomorrow morning". As you can imagine, I was frustrated and upset, but they had so efficiently managed me that the door was closed and I could see there was no way I was getting on the plane. I took some small comfort in thinking we would receive a generous amount of comp. When the GA called (whomever she needed to? Not sure which dept.) to organize our comp, however, she was surprised to learn that we were only going to get $103 in cash, per pax, as compared with several hundred $ each. Of course, I was surprised too.

There's more to the story, but none of it especially relevant other than the fact that I waited around the gate for a manager to come speak with us, she improved upon what the GA did in terms of getting us into the ORD Hilton (rather than long shuttle ride away) and a couple of other nice pieces of assistance.

I was very, very upset, particularly as the GAs and managers insisted that there was nothing they could do once the IDB calculation had been done, b/c it was "prescribed by law", and they insisted that they (AA) could be fined for paying us MORE than the IDB rules required.

I was naturally suspicious of all this, and learned the following. I'm sure this is obvious to the experienced among you, but I'm sharing for others, like me, who didn't know the rules and wish that I had.

It turns out that the Code of Federal Regulations that governs oversales is, in fact, very specific about what it requires in terms of IDB comp, and I'm assuming that AA calculated it correctly in terms of the math (see here). We were all on award tickets, and whatever nominal value AA puts on them seems to have resulted in the small comp that they offered.

What the GAs didn't know, however, were the additional requirements of the code*, that, if they had, would have prevented my problem from worsening.

Summarized, one section of the code requires that "Every carrier shall advise each passenger solicited to volunteer for denied boarding, no later than the time the carrier solicits that passenger to volunteer, whether he or she is in danger of being involuntarily denied boarding and, if so, the compensation the carrier is obligated to pay if the passenger is involuntarily denied boarding.

It turned out that, even though the GAs knew something about the prescription for IDB comp calculation, they had incorrectly assumed prior to calling AA that we would automatically receive the voluntary bump comp they had been offering. Once they called for IDB comp, though, they didn't see any way to correct it.

Aside from their obvious lack of familiarity with the rules, the GAs clearly erred in not:

a) warning me that I was potentially subject to IDB
b) finding out ahead of time what my IDB comp calculation would be
c) giving us the choice of taking voluntary or involuntary IDB comp

(They also erred in not supplying me a written explanation of the IDB rules.)

Again - I'm posting this here b/c it happened on AA, but I don't think any of this was unique to the airline. The morning hijinks were upsetting. Lessons learned. As an Admirals Club Angel said to me about the evening problems, though, "that's a pretty unusual situation" taking into account the IDB, combined with what were award tix with a low notional value. I have to assume that most of the time, based on what others have described as typical voluntary bump comp amounts, if there are IDB situations like this, the calculated comp probably comes out at least even or perhaps much higher than what the voluntary bump sum was. If that happens, failing to follow the notification rules doesn't really hurt anyone.

* The "oversales" section of the law appears as Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Chapter II, Part 250.

Setven567

I think the intend of the rule is that airline can't hide from you that they have to pay you more cause you are going to get IDB and can't dupe you into taking VDB instead.
In your case, it is the other way around.
I am wondering how many people got IDB was told they may get IDB when the GA was offering VDB.
I guess if follow the rule, GA has to find the pax that may get IDB, told him/her that if no one take VDB then he/her will get IDB for this much prior to ask for volunteer.

mvoight

Now, go to Expert Flyer and look at AA 2412 for Saturday from LAX-DFW
If you look at availabilty, you will see F4. If you look at the seat map, you will seat there are 15 FC seats remaining, at this moment.
Don't believe the map.

The legal compensation is the MINIMUM they have to give you, not the maximum.
They could have still offered you vouchers for more.