Help: Elderly Mom Sent to EWR Instead of LGA

Write hard letter asking for compensation

Next time fly her on WN where people are nicer to HRL

While it's really nice that OP got into the mix by calling UA to rearrange her mother's travel, this ocurred at the same time that UA was doing so on its own because of the evident misconnect.

There is no real solution to the above problem because OP is stuck far away from the ground, while a CSR on the ground is tapping away trying to figure out how to get OP's mother to LGA.

Clearly someone at UA figured out that the mom is elderly because they actually rebooked an award ticket OA when there were decent (although not ideal for an elderly and presumably inexperienced) traveler, e.g., shifting LGA to EWR.

The urban myth of sending in snail mail letters is silly. Those are simply scanned into the same database as the webform, it just takes weeks longer.

But, OP might consider determining whether her mother held a valid AA BP, appeared at the gate for departure ontime and was denied boarding. She might -- and I stress might -- be entitled to IDB from AA which would be cold hard cash. As an educated guess, if the mother was able to check bags & held valid BP's, the only reason not to board her was an oversell, which can easily occur during IRROPS at a small airport.

Did your mom receive boarding passes from AA? If yes, then you have a case of IDB by AA. If not, then there might be an ticket/reservation alignment issue, which is notorious on AA's system. Although, if bags were checked through AA, my assumption is BP were issued.

(emphasis added)

I know UA reuses certain flight numbers, but one of these numbers is probably not correct.

In the post you quote it says there were AA boarding passes but they were tossed.

It seems being able to check bags on a flight you're not able to board would be a pretty significant issue - even a REAL security issue.

But is it possible OP called AFTER PAX checked in but BEFORE PAX boarded?

If so, would it have been possible for UA to re-re-accommodate back on UA flights, thus pulling her off the AA flights she'd already checked in for?

I corrected the flight number. It was 1236 to EWR. She did receive AA BPs but they were taken by the AA GA.

I think this sounds like a real possibility. May likely be what happened.

We're off to LGA now to pick up the bags. Thank you everyone.

PPBM (Positive Passenger Bag Match) is not a requirement (and fairly common) for domestic travel and airline driven rerouting (passagner / bag separation) on bags even for international travel is allowed

I've had UA move me to AA 3 times recently. In each case, US messed up the transfer, and despite me checking in, I was not able to board a flight without the flight coupon attached, which United never gave me. In one case, I made a few "runs" between AA and UA terminals. In the last case (due to the issues in my previous two) I proactively asked AA what was wrong, knowing something would be, and found a great AA agent who spent lots of time with UA on the phone and got it figured out. It seems UA transfers the eticket to a paper ticket, but never gives me the paper ticket.

Anyway, my point is (should have gotten right to it, sorry) it's likely the AA boarding passes required something from UA that UA did not provide (the ticket) hence the denial of getting on AA. Glad Mom is safely with you.

Why isn't AA catching this at check-in?

Yes, I thought this went away when they started scanning all domestic checked bags. Also, I thought the rule only applied on the originating flight anyways and not with connecting flights.

USAir still uses it as an excuse to keep you from changing flights.

One important note -- you may have to deal with UA for the bags. While they were checked in with AA, the final flight was on UA.

In 2003, we had UA put us on AA due to a cancellation after bags had already been checked. The UA agent told us not to tell the AA agents that we had checked bags with UA when we checked in, but to file the lost bag claim with AA when we arrived. Did so, and the next day I drove back to the airport and the AA bag claim office walked me to the back room they shared with UA (who had transported the bag) and found it. They might have delivered, but the airport was close and I didn't really feel right since it truly wasn't their fault.

AA might just give you the bags at LGA with the claim check, but be prepared for the worst case of having to go back to UA -- possibly in EWR, but hopefully not.

I usually get quite a bit of pushback if I try and separate from my bags on my own initiative, even when flying domestically, but understand PPBM isn't a domestic requirement.

But if there was a reliable way for a passenger to KNOW they could get a bag on a flight and KNOW they wouldn't end up on that flight...

Yeah, guess you're right, they can already just not board and I doubt the airline is going to pull the bags prior to departure.

Yes, I think this is the most likely explanation. When the OP called in to change, the UA agent ended up (not intentionally) cancelling the AA segments. The cancellation came through on to AA's computer system after check-in and was caught by the GA and, therefore, BP's were confiscated by the GA.

Honestly, it sounds like this one needs to be chalked up to random airline happenings. The OP's Mother arrived safely. Next time, maybe it would be a good idea to leave an extra long connecting time (perhaps 2 hours). When I used to fly CO out of SAT, I ALWAYS left a longer-than-normal connecting time because of weather issues.