I did a quick trip to MSP and back booked on AA, since I figured it was worth giving them a real try (only time I'd been on previously was a rebooked flight following a US cancellation), and it was a shorter itinerary.
And for the past four days I have been wishing for a time machine to go back and slap myself silly and say "never book AA, stupid".
The timeline so far:
On Friday, had itinerary for MCI-ORD-MSP. First segment scheduled to leave around 11AM. Got a phone call saying one-hour delay, headed to MCI and talked to an AA agent who assured me that although ORD was having weather issues, everything there was being held, so ORD-MSP would be just as delayed and I wouldn't miss the connection.
That was AA fail number one. I then committed personal fail number one by checking a bag.
As the delays mounted up, I noted that the screens in the terminal weren't showing the same status as flightware or even AA's website. Also discovered, just barely in time, that ORD-MSP was not delayed and I now had a 7-minute connection time. Since AA had no agent inside the secure area, scooted out to rebook. Which turned out to be fortuitous since my original MCI-ORD leg cancelled about five minutes after I got my new ticket.
AA fail count is now at 3.
Got to ORD and then on to MSP. And, surprise, no bag. Personal fail number one comes back to haunt me as AA fail number 4. Which I now count as also AA fail number 5 since it turned out the bag was never even re-tagged at MCI when I changed flights.
I end up spending $120 on clothes to make up for the fact that bag isn't there and I don't know when it'll arrive. It finally shows up Saturday evening -- or at least that's when I found it in my hotel room, since AA never called (as they'd promised they'd do) to let me know they were delivering it. That's AA fail number 6.
Fast forward to today. I'm booked MSP-DFW-MCI, scheduled to leave MSP at about 2PM. I commit personal fails number 2 and 3 by A) not looking at DFW weather, since my flight's listed on time and B) once again checking a bag.
AA fail number 7 is boarding MSP-DFW. Period. At that point, though I didn't know it, DFW was already fully shut down, and there was simply no way that plane was going to take off any time soon. And if they'd told us anything about what was going on, or waited a bit to board, I'd have had a chance to grab a direct MSP-MCI on another airline.
Instead, enter AA fail number 8: we get boarded, pilot comes on and announces DFW is in a ground stop for at least an hour, so we're going to push back from the gate and park somewhere out of the way to wait. But it'll be OK -- since it's a full ground stop, all the connections are delayed too! Making that claim would be AA fail number 9, revealed later when FA announced gates for a bunch of connecting flights departing (or already departed) on-time.
Finally took off after 2.5 hours sitting on the tarmac, only to arrive into hell on earth at DFW. Found out on landing that not just my DFW-MCI, but every DFW-MCI, has cancelled. AA fail number 10 is the agent in the Admirals Club who tells me that being upset after this sequence of events (when I point out I could've easily made it home today with a quick rebook in MSP) isn't helpful.
AA fail number 11 is, of course, that I'm currently in a hotel room in Dallas at my own expense (including cab fare to get here from DFW), when there was absolutely no reason to. Stranding me overnight someplace when being proactive getting information to passengers could've prevented that is why I dropped Delta years ago.
AA fail number 12 is that two hours after landing in DFW, my checked bag still hadn't come out despite "messages" being sent to the baggage handlers. I gave up and just went to the hotel, as I badly needed food and sleep. I was assured that my bag has nowhere to go except MCI at this point, but I anticipate AA fail number 13 tomorrow to prove that wrong somehow.
And... at this point the tally is:
My personal failures: 3
AA's failures: 12 and probably soon to be 13
My plan at this point is a 6AM DAL-MCI on Southwest, again at my expense, because I am beyond the point of being psychologically able to deal with American Airlines right now. Weather/IRROPS cause bad situations, I know. But on both the outbound and return of this trip, just a tiny bit of proactive work by AA agents in getting information out when there was still time to act would have prevented basically all of what has happened to me over the past few days.
Going forward, I'm going to avoid AA-operated flights like the plague until I see evidence that the US culture -- which may have involved plastic cups but at least got me where I was going, or gave me enough information to switch myself to something that would -- is taking hold.