Shinkle1

We booked our son on American Airline using frequent flyer miles traveling to Los Angeles from Philadelphia, connecting through San Francisco (best available), as graduation gift. The flight from Philly was delayed and he missed his connection.

I was worried that I kept checking to see if the flight had left because it was his first flight on his own. I saw the message that it was delayed and the arrival would be after SFO flight for LA departure. I called American to see what they would since I noticed they didn't have any other flight that night to LA..

The agent pulled up my son's res. and told me not to worry once he gets to the SFO airport he should go to the AA counter and ask to be reaccomodated to the morning flight and ask for hotel voucher, she made it sound that they would take care of him. I even took her name and location. I texted my son to call. Once he arrived I told him to do that.

My son called me back and it appears the agent told him they reaccomodate him on the morning flight but decline to give him hotel voucher because the delay was due to the weather. Philly had no bad weather that evening. So I called the AA back and the lady tells me the delay was due to an international flight delay, she didn't see anything about the weather. But then she said she cannot do anything about, may will add miles on the account. She then asked me i wanted to be transferred to book a hotel for him. I mentioned I'm losing $138 at LA airport hotel already, I cannot afford another hotel.

So my son stayed at the airport all night and we lost $138 and I didn't see any mikes added. Not only did the airline agents lie but also made my son's first experience on his horrible and lost money on top of that.

I am not happy. I would like to get at least my $138 I lost back. Any input would be appreciated!!

Thank you so much for you suggestions!!

SH

beckoa

Welcome to Flyertalk @Shinkle1.

As the flight issue is with AA, we'll move your post to the AA forum.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk

arollins

Where is your son now? What is $138 for? Ask for a distressed fare at hotel. Not knowing flight details, if delay is due to weather, the airline is only responsible to re-accommodate on next available flight, no hotel provided. I've overnighted in SFO numerous times, not bad. Your post was at 2pm, was this yesterday that occurred?

mvoight

Is it a delay due to weather? If so, then you are out of luck.
If you provide more detailed flight info, someone here could check out the delay reason
If not, then AA should provide a hotel at SFO

On the $138, did you call that hotel as soon as you found out about the overnight stay in SFO and ask them if they would give you a break? Many hotels are reasonable about this

FlyForFun

Check your credit cad benefits. I used my CitiBank Aadvantage Master Card for an AA flight that was canceled because of weather. We had pre-paid for four nights at a condo in Maui using the same credit card. I submitted a claim and was reimbursed for the unused night of the condo. If we had been able to get a hotel room, the credit card would have covered it also. It was during a horrible snowstorm at DFW and no rooms were available, so we slept at the Admirals Club (AA kept one open all night for members because of the unusual circumstances).

JDiver

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

Unfortunately, weather issues can concatenation, and Hurricane Harvey and the typhoon affecting Hong Kong have knock-on effects on other flights. And AA will not normally provide lodging and meal vouchers when weather affects flights (nor will other US airlines).

But: contact the originally booked hotel, tell them your son has been stranded in LA SF overnight - to both allow them to release the room and to ask them if they can kindly refund your money, given the "no show" was out of your hands.

One can also contact the hotel chain's main number and a) do the same as above (though you'll often have better luck calling the property directly), and b) to ask if there's a nearby property with shuttle service that offers a distressed passenger rate .

I've done these several times; they've often, albeit not always, worked for me.

And if all else fails, check the Sleeping in Airports web site, sleepinginairports.net. The page for SFO is here. Yep, I've had to do that, too. Though in my 70s, I'm not quite as eager to do that.

nrr

It is too easy for AA to invoke "weather" to get out of paying for hotels.
Several years ago I was connecting in DFW heading to LGA, out of 6 flights from DFW to NYC two were cancelled (mine was one of these)--"weather" caused cancellations, I had to pay (at least at discounted rate) for one night.
There is nearly always "bad" weather somewhere, flights criss-cross the USA several times per day, so it is easy to cancel a flt due to "weather".

FlyingEgghead

For clarity, OP's son was stranded overnight at SFO, not LAX. In addition, the itinerary in the thread title should read the reverse (PHL-SFO-LAX) based on what was stated.

JDiver

Thanks! I'm not sure who posted the itinerary in the thread title, but it's corrected now.

Shinkle1

[QUOTE=beckoa;28737307]Welcome to Flyertalk @Shinkle1.

As the flight issue is with AA, we'll move your post to the AA forum.

~beckoa, co-moderator

Shinkle1

Quote:
Originally Posted by beckoa View Post
Welcome to Flyertalk @Shinkle1.

As the flight issue is with AA, we'll move your post to the AA forum.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk
I called the hotel to let them know my son is not able to make it. I did not know you could ask for a refund due to this circumstances!! The hotel was booked through Priceline and it was nonref.

The flight number my son was on: Aug 19 on AA759 PHL-SFO departing philly 6:15pm arriving SFO at 9:28pm..connecting SFO-LAX was AA6040 to depart 10pm

(AA rep told me that delay was because issue originated from international sector, from Europe and there was no indication of weather).

Thank you all for your input. I will try to call my AA credit card company to see if they would refund that LA hotel charge.

Shinkle1

I called the hotel to let them know my son is not able to make it. I did not know you could ask for a refund due to this circumstances!! The hotel was booked through Priceline and it was nonref.

The flight number my son was on: AA759 PHL-SFO departing philly 6:15pm arriving SFO at 9:28pm..connecting SFO-LAX was AA6040 to depart 10pm

(AA rep told me that delay was because issue originated from international sector, from Europe and there was no indication of weather).

Thank you all for your input. I will try to call my AA credit card company to see if they would refund that LA hotel charge.

LovePrunes

priceline is tricky because it is marketed up front as nonrefundable.
So is hotwire. However I have had luck getting hotwire to move a reservation to a completely different city, state, and dates for a 3-night stay. I was looking at being out $450 dollars.

They said it was a one-time exception but granted my request for a refund (and rebooking on the same phone call) but it's worth being persistent with these opaque travel sites and offer them a replacement night booked somewhere else if they will just please waive the rule like for your LAX hotel your son missed.

SK AAR

It may not be an opaque booking, but most likely a normal booking made through PL. Anyway, making reservations through PL (or any other OTA) certainly makes it a lot more complicated to get a refund. Even if the property may be prepared to do so, it may be that PL is not!

To the OP: Next time, book directly with the hotel. If this was a direct booking, there had been a fair chance that the hotel would accept a refund - or at least to move the stay to a different date. Now, your chances are very slim - initiating a credit card dispute will not help as strictly speaking the reservation is non-refundable even ifin case of misconnecting.

jordyn

I assume this was on August 20th, since that looks like the only significant delay on this flight recently? Unfortunately that's long enough ago that at least the tool I use no longer has the cause for the delay logged. In the future, it's helpful to post as many details as soon as possible so that people can help figure out what was going on.

To me, it seems unlikely that the cause was either the international flight or the weather.

The reason it's not the international sector: 1)the ATH->PHL portion of the flight actually arrived on time, and 2)the PHL->SFO flight uses a different airplane than the ATH->PHL sector, so it wouldn't have matter even if it was delayed.

The reason it's probably not weather: if there was not in fact weather in PHL, the usual way the airlines play this game is to blame the late arrival of a previous flight. However, the inbound plane for this flight made it to PHL in plenty of time to make it to SFO; approximately two hours before the originally scheduled departure of the PHL->SFO flight.

So it's hard to say what the actual reason was, but at a minimum AA did a typically terrible job of providing reasonable information or assistance about the problem. I'd write their customer service a message via the web form saying that you were explicitly told that your son would be provided with a hotel room when he arrived and that instead he was abandoned in the airport. You probably won't get much, but AA should at least send some miles your way which may help compensate for the situation.

Since you bought a non-refundable hotel room, this doesn't seem like the right course of action to me--it's not the hotel's fault that AA can't operate to schedule. In the future, you may want to consider travel insurance that would cover flight delays like this as it would have covered a hotel room for your son in a situation like this.