Originally Posted by
OskiBear
It would appear from the document that "...compliance with the
customer service rule that requires carriers to hold a reservation at the quoted fare for 24 hours
without payment or allow a reservation to be cancelled within 24 hours without penalty"
Given the "or," I would imagine that AA's point is they are obligated to offer one or the other. When they were still doing the 24-hour reservation (without requiring payment) process, I always understood it to mean that I was not allowed any refund if I chose to actually ticket the reservation within 24 hours. As an example, I could hold a reservation for up to 24 hours and let it expire without any cost/penalty to me. Alternatively, if I chose to ticket it immediately, I was waiving my 24-hour hold option, but was also not availing myself of a non-existent (at the time) 24-hour refund policy.
Is that the rule? Or everyone else's understanding of AA's policy at the time?
Yes you are correct. When they offered the hold and you ticketed it (at any point - before or after the 24hrs) you gave up your DOT right as AA fulfilled their obligation by offering the hold time. (Now of course there always were some exceptions that they would refund within 24hrs but that was courtesy and not official policy).