jordyn

The theory that you are trying to articulate--that AA only holds inventory and not the fare, is just not how it actually works. You've offered no evidence that it does: no language offered by AA in its rules, not a single reference to a single FTer who was ever told by AA that this is how it works, not a blog post by someone who talked to AA, nothing. This is random speculation on your part not matched by anyone's actual experience. If this was actually how it worked, it would certainly happen to people from time to time and there would be actual discussion of it here; rather than expecting people to prove the negative, you should be bringing some degree of proof that it works the way you describe.

Also note that AA uses the exact same language to talk about paid holds as they do for the free ones. Is your theory that if you pay them money to hold your reservation that they withdraw the fare in the meantime that they're just going to tell you "oh, too bad, you were only holding the inventory because the DOT doesn't require that we do anything but guarantee a fare for 24 hours?"