Originally Posted by
brewdog11
Presumptuous GAs aside, the OP did not get "busted" because he didn't do anything wrong (he didn't even fly). He/she should request a refund on account of the departure delay if he's willing to "rock the boat" a little more and not worry about what the AAgent wrote in his PNR. IMHO, OP should just have politely stuck to the "I want the routing I paid for" story on grounds that he was meeting a companion at LAX. I've done this numerous times at DFW when going from domestic to international. This is very common.
When my layover time is ample, I will say that I have a meeting in Admirals Club of the connecting city (sometimes a true story). People pay to fly specific routes and avoid specific airports for a number of legitimate reasons, and most airline staff understand and respect that.
I've had good luck getting favorable rebookings when stating that I'm on a mileage run. LOL, I've never needed an excuse! It's almost like it's fun to some AAgents to come up with convoluted routings. Was recently flying MSY-DFW-LAS to catch another MR when a VDB offer came up, and I took it. I told the AAgent that I was on an MR and he laughed. "Let's see what we can do," he said as he booked me going MSY-CLT-LAX-LAS.
Except that this particular agent didn't buy it.
The bottom line is that if you purchase a ticket A-C which happens to connect at B, you can be rerouted A-D-C or you could be rerouted onto the A-C nonstop. If you have a meeting at B, you would then purchase A-B and B-C as separate segments and pay the segment fares.
AA is a lot tougher than UA & DL on COC issues (until the others catch up) and for all we know the GA gets a bonus for catching a live one.
The juvenile fibbing doesn't help if the agent has heard it all before. Even if it's not a fib and it's true.