If you are buying an itinerary and want to ug with swu it can be ug'd immediately if you are paying with a credit card, but won't be until after the ticket is issued if paying with gift cards! What this means in practice is that if you see an ug available you may lose it in the few hours to few days it takes them to ticket.
Okay that was bad enough, but now I've discovered that if you get a refund it is issued as a PAPER voucher that must be mailed in or taken to the airport to ticket (and has an expiration date). Refunds are supposed to be issued to "the same form of payment" - so a gc that can be applied online and has no expiration is refunded in a form that cannot be used online and expires
Is this even legal? Is it a DOT issue? (and yes I've verified multiple times that this cannot be overridden "because that is the only option the computer gives us"
I took a gamble when AA was in dire straits and gave them a lot of money upfront (and yes, there was a discount that enticed me), but now I don't see why anyone would ever buy these that they are still selling online (of course without mention of the items above).