Arrived last night to a club I had never been to before, which shall remain nameless. Upon checking in, somehow this subject came up; all AAngels at the desk, all of whom are LAA and who shall also remain nameless, were shocked & said they'd never heard of this, either.

One of the AAngels immediately starting typing w/purpose on her computer, asked me multiple questions about the receipt that started this thread & was eventually able to print it for me (hence the need for her to remain nameless!).

She showed me around the club & we had a very long, very interesting conversation.

She said they are being 'watched very closely' w/re: to what they doing to assist pax & will be restricted even further after 10/17 (maybe we should start referring to that as 'D Day'?). She said they are all frustrated because they want to help us, but those in charge feel very differently, unless payment is being rendered.

She said she was assisting a CK pax recently to board a RJ flight & even though she & the pax knew his rollaboard would go up, the LUS GA made a scene @ the gate about it & insisted the pax unload some of it before allowing him to board. She said she was mortified, apologized profusely but felt she had no choice but to comply w/the GA otherwise 'they' would never let her go to the gate again.

She said there was an 'employee appreciation' event recently & though she didn't get into specifics she said she now understands why the pax are so angry and frustrated. Also said she & the others have noticed the absence of many of their 'best customers' lately & while we know travel can wax & wane, I find that statement telling.

I had mentioned to her that I'd been holding off changing another flight because of the receipt issue; she told me while she couldn't make the changes for me (see the previous statement about being watched), if I could get it done on the phone while I was there she would be more than happy to generate the receipt for me. I did, she did, & no surprise, when the e-mail confirmation finally came, once again, no reference to the $200 change fee. BTW-agent on the phone, who made a comment about my receiving a receipt for the change, also said she had not heard about this, asked me for all of the specifics including the agent who I had been communicating with, & said she was going to talk to someone. Said it was bad enough AA was charging $200 to make a change, but to then not provide a receipt was unacceptable to her.

As much as I would like to send a e-mail to AA CS about how much I appreciated her help, I'm afraid to even send a generic message in case they conduct an audit trail of my account & see what she did.

As I was leaving, they all asked commented that the 'new' American isn't working for them, wanted to know if I was hiring & could they come work for me. I have yet to find a LAA employee who is happy about the 'new' American.

Way to go for great, Dougie