arollins

Robert, I wish you and your spouse a speedy recovery. One thing that hasn't been mentioned, is to check if there has been a schedule change in your trip, a substantial change can be in your favor as you can request full cancellation. As others have pointed out, you bought a non refundable ticket, you clearly agreed to its terms once you purchased it. Nowhere in the terms did it mentioned any exception due to health issues. You might luck out and find a sympathetic agent that might make an exception, but that may not happen as well. I suggest is best to wait and see if a potential change occur.

guv1976

Were the tickets purchased with a credit card that provides free "trip cancellation" insurance?

Yoshi212

I have to side with AA on this one. You entered into an agreement, a contract, with AA for your travels with specific stipulations, terms & fee schedules. If your appendix has burst or you had a clot in your lung I'd be with you but your health conditions, while serious, had time to be treated so this is a case for your travel insurance.

BUT, AA as an act of good faith should allow you to have the amount of your purchase given in a form of a travel credit with or without a fee for doing so. Airlines are known for doing so. I suggest reaching out to them again via social media or the via the rejection letter email very simply laying out that your travels cannot continue due to documented medical reasons of which you will gladly provide them and request a credit for future travels once you're able. Stick to facts and keep it simple. You can mention that after years of flying with AA you'd hate this to be your last impression or something of the line but don't go overboard.

beckoa

Welcome to Flyertalk and sorry to hear about these issues.

Please follow the redirect as we move this to the AA forum.

Please note this thread started in the Flame Free Information Desk.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk

nrr

AA frequently makes flight changes, if the change is more than 2 hours(?), one would be entitled to a refund. So, would there by any reason to cancel early vs. waiting until the day of the flight?
On the other hand, OP did not know AA would be rule stickler and (naturally) assumed that early notification to AA of their medical conditons was prudent.
I am confused re AA's response, if it were a medical emergency (in AAs eyes) would they have allowed a cancellation with a refund

mvoight

I was also confused by that statement, because for domestic tickets in recent years, for discounted economy, I have only seen comments in the terms relating to death, and not to other medical issues. If airlines did this, there would be no need for a travel insurance industry that insures for this type of thing. My personal feeling is that I am willing to self insurance with the potential loss normally being the price of the change fee.

arollins

Back in Apr 2014 I had to cancel a trip to Europe because I suffered a minor heart attack less than a week before the trip occurred. The agent was very sympathetic when I contacted her, we talked a bit about what I was going through at the time. I was well aware of AA t&c and did not ask for anything. Months latter when I got the green light from the doctor I check trips and so that the prices had no changed at all, called and had the trip re-booked at a new date with no penalty fees paid.

50ae

This is one of the reasons why I have the AA Citi Executive card. It provides coverage in these instances. Last year I had 1500$ worth of tickets (3 round trips) planned from SBP-DFW and I got laid off from that job so they refunded the ticket cost for me. It took a couple months but it did work out.

chitink

If you ask nicely for credit, I have found they usually are helpful. But you can't go into the conversation assuming they should refund you, when that's not what you bought.

Try calling again and asking even for credit so that you can use the tickets at a later date when you are both healthy again.

Carl Christensen

It is unfortunate you both experienced medical issues.

However, let us not make assertions that aren't factual.

-Prostate cancer surgery (prostatectomy) is never an emergency surgery.
-In general, in the US prostatectomies are scheduled at least 6 weeks after diagnosis and can be safely done according most reports even a year after diagnosis with no impact on long term outcomes

So based on those two facts, it is a bit much to say that it suddenly had to be done prior to your trip.

Additionally, your flight is scheduled 2 months after prostatectomy. Most surgical services would indicate that at 2 months after pelvic surgery there would be no contraindication to flight.

I get that the trip may not be desirable now after these medical events but to say medical events in august will preclude flights the end of October is difficult to reconcile.

JDiver

Welcome to FlyerTalk. And, I'm glad you're both recovering.

Most, if not indeed all, of us have learned (from FlyerTalk, more often than not):

1) Read the detailed fare rules (clickable on aa.com before purchasing), read and even print them to a PDF. Nearly all discounted fares require change fees (usually $200-400 per ticket) for changes. Most also do not allow free changes or cancellation unless for death of close family member or travel companion. These tickets can generally be canceled and the residual (after fees) used within a year of booking toward other flights.

2) Be sure you have trip cancellation, etc. insurance if you feel you can't "self insure" (eat the lost amount), whether it's a trip insurance policy or annual travel insurance policy, a credit card that provides you with trip cancellation insurance, etc. Particularly with cruise ship companies, you'll find their cancellation policies are as strict as the airlines'.

3) The airlines have competent medical personnel to advise them of fitness to fly issues, including these. I'm guessing they felt two months' recovery would be sufficient to be fit to fly. And I'm sure they have a different view of what is "life threatening" and what realistic recovery times are for specific procedures than you and your spouse, the person's undergoing the procedures.

4) I'd have recommended cancellation closer - much closer - to date of departure. Then you'd know if you could travel, and as has been mentioned, the airlines make frequent chang s. A change of two hours or more entitles you to cancel without charge and full refundability.

5) Airlines have no soul, and their compassion exists only as embodied by their employees - that may vary a lot, but generally the airline employees won't stray too far from policy lest they be disciplined for doing so.

You likely can still follow the information given in 1) (and by others here).

See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated.html.

See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ancel-etc.html, where this all may end up.

Be sure to read the Wikipost at the top of the pages in each thread.

C17PSGR

As others have noted in more detailed posts, check your credit card. You may have coverage for this.

And ... best wishes for your recovery.

Bonaventure

I cancelled a Germany-USA AA ticket (feeder on BA) and don't think I was issued an MCO, was just told to call back in and pick a new flight with a $200 change fee.

However, I was told that because this ticket is in EUR I can only book an itinerary ex-EU because it must also be denominated in EUR. Is this true?

Additionally, since most of the ticket is actually just taxes, is it possible to just refund it and lose the base fare but receive the taxes?

umaa83

A few weeks ago I was on a QR J ticket from ZNZ to DTW through DOH and PHL (all one ticket issued by QR). PHL-DTW was on AA. AA cancelled my PHL-DTW flight due to weather. I decided at PHL to rent a car and drive home and get a refund for my PHL-DTW segment. Since this was a QR issued ticket, I expected to go through the refund process with QR, however, the AA transfer desk at PHL informed me that since AA had taken over the ticket, I actually need to submit the refund request through their website with the AA ticket number for the PHL-DTW segment. They also advised me that my refund amount was $777.50 for the PHL-DTW segment. On my way home, I called QR and the AA Executive Platinum desk and both independently confirmed what the AA PHL transfer desk had advised me. Once getting home, I submitted the request through AA's website using my AA ticket number and a few days later my ticket showed as refunded, however, without a dollar amount. I called the EP desk and the agent was able to confirm the refund and see the amount of $777.50. At the time, I was unable to get a straight answer from AA or QR as to whether the refund was going to come from AA or QR, they naturally both pointed fingers at each other (I never provided my credit card information to AA which prompted my question).

This all happened about three weeks ago. Today I decided to push the issue with AA. They claimed that they authorized the refund on my ticket for $777.50 and the information was sent to QR. I called QR and this time the QR agent mentioned that she was able to see that AA had authorized the PHL-DTW segment for a refund (using the AA ticket number), but could not see a dollar amount. She contacted QR's refund desk and came back to me confirming what AA had told me, that QR needed to receive the refund authorization from AA, which they could see on the ticket, but then work with the Oneworld desk to actually process the refund as they still could not see the dollar amount. The agent took down my information, confirmed my credit card that I had used to initially purchase the ticket, and advised me that her refund department told her it could take up to a month for them to actually get me the refund since the Oneworld desk was involved.

It appears that I may have actually gotten somewhere today, however, in all my years as an EP travelling with AA and their partners, I have never had this exact situation happen where AA started the refund process on a ticket they initially didn't issue. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this and was the process followed similar?

Gig103

I booked a ticket last night and the schedule doesn't work for my wife so I need to change it (it's been about 10 hours as of writing)

The question is, how long do refunds take? I paid with 2x$100 GC plus credit card. To rebook I still want to reuse them. Or will the reservations desk, if I call, just change the schedule (and charge fare difference only)?

Edit: Decided to just call and find out since the hold times weren't bad. What I found odd was that the prices the agent quoted (after telling me that within 24hr she could waive the change fee) were higher than AA.com for the different itinerary. Is that something that happens - fares differing online vs the phone agent? And as I'm getting close to 60 days out if I do cancel, and wait for the refund to my gift card, and rebook, how likely is it that fare rules change and prices go up even more?