Originally Posted by
emh210
I often worry about this fare code because of how it shows up. I always tell my corporate reservation desk to give me J and they assure me that R is perfectly fine and can't be downgraded. Well... Guess what happened 2 weeks ago! My R was misinterpreted on a missed connection rebook and downgraded to Economy. Now, for short hops I could honestly care less, especially on the returns my thought is just get me home tonight! but what happens when they misinterpret that on an international and you go from Paid Business to economy!
And you could have the exact opposite experience if you're upgraded and in R and you re-book through the app in IROPS -- it seems to be treated as paid R in that scenario, and you can re-book even the last seat in J, even when it's unlikely R inventory is available.
It suggests to me that the distinction between paid and upgraded isn't so clear-cut with AA's IT, so it could be exploited by a clever passenger, or a passenger paying a high premium for an upper-tier fare class (for which the current hierarchy is supposedly J, R, D, I), the high-paying could end up paying for J and end up screwed over because he was ticketed in R.
And we're already seeing examples, as posted above. All it takes is one bad AA agent who documents the record that it must be rebooked in Economy to ruin someone's day.
I thought one of the points of the fare class changes a couple of years ago was to help reduce duplication and promote segmentation, but it seems kind of silly to have these top tier fare classes (R and A) duplicated with upgrade fare classes.