Originally Posted by
Often1
Almost all AA tickets which are said to be inflexible are only inflexiblein that if cancelled prior to departure there is a credit created for use within a year, less a penalty. This would be the case if you wished to cancel for any reason (or none at all). Thus, most likely, what you are seeking and will likely receive is a credit without a penalty. You may use that credit for any AA ticket, not necessarily the specific trip you had booked but at a later date. On the other hand, if this is a trip you know that you do want to take and simply want to push it out for a while, AA will almost certainly simply rebook you and waive the penalty.
Thus, useful to know that going into this, you don't likely face losing the value of your tickets.
I understood that was the case only for tickets issued in the US. I have fallen foul of this with a ticket issued by AA in the UK, where I discovered that inflexible and non-refundable has the typical meaning used by BA and other airlines.
In the States, it seems all the major airlines have a different interpretation of such things. Non-refundable means just that - you can't have your money back, but you can reuse it. Here that's not the case.