you would think that it doesn't but this is ai after all....they make every effort in the world to make life as difficult as possible for their customers....

i have 2 examples, over the last couple of months, of how unethically they behave:

the first was in february when i had to cancel an award ticket....the t&c at the time of booking clearly stated that 10% miles would be deducted in the form of a penalty if i were to cancel....when i called to cancel i was also told by the agent that 10% would be deducted....the ticket was cancelled but i only got 80% miles back....i questioned why & was eventually informed that the penalty is 20%, even though the t&c of the ticket & the agent who cancelled confirmed that it was 10%....i have not received the balance 10% miles back....

the second was in march when the lockdown came into effect....i was supposed to fly del-lhr on the 29th but the flight was cancelled....i started calling ai to cancel this flight even before the lockdown was announced but could not get through to them for a week....on the 26th i finally decided to call their usa number since the indian number wouldn't work....after an hour on hold i finally got through to an agent who told me that ai was allowing a one time change but no refund....since i booked the ticket in august last year, i was told that i could extend the date till august this year....i asked what would happen if i decided to wait & he said that i would have to forfeit all miles if i didn't make the change since it was now 3 days prior to my departure date....so under pressure i gave him a random date for august....now it turns out that i did not have to postpone the ticket at all at that time & could have picked another date 12 months into the future....also, i had the option to cancel & get the miles back according to the original t&c of the ticket....when i called back to ask if i could do that, i was informed that even though the agent gave me bad information, i changed the date once so i cannot do it again....

so basically ai agents give whatever information they want & then their supervisors say 'tough luck'....there is no accountability....so there is every chance that i could wait to cancel this ticket but if it is not done so by my travel date then ai will wash their hands of it....