Originally Posted by
hillrider
Sorry, my "clearly" didn't intend to refer to there being a legal disclosure buried in the document you dug up, but being "easy" and "obvious". Something that your mom would figure out (no offense intended, just a figure of speech).
And the outrage is not faux, but quite real.
My mom, when offered to click a box to "Redeem Miles" on the homepage at
www.aa.com, will assume that that's all is required. She will go through the entire booking process without being told that, no, that's not all that is required, since travel on other airlines may be available by calling and paying the booking fee. And my mom being over 60 she will not look for (or know how to find) the 788 words-long document you linked to. Clearly.
Oh,
over sixty. That explains EVERYTHING. Clearly.
But airlines are always slanting what they sell, how they sell it and how they squeeze the passenger. Given AA collects $ for phone bookings, they have little incentive to work hard to include all airlines awards online; given the emphasis in IT is more likely to be the impending FFP merger (and ultimately the systems mergers) than on making it easier and more equitable for those seeking award seats.