Originally Posted by
ORDflyer92
Which Y fare though? AA sells so many fare classes this question is impossible to answer, especially since full fare Y usually costs more than discount J. Also, a good amount of paid J flyers are paid by their employer, so they don't care about the refund.
My suggestion would be to offer some real compensation - travel vouchers, AC passes (or upgrade AC members to the FL for the day), 500 mile upgrades, or a good amount of award miles (I've never been offered more than 2500 for IRROPS, which is pathetic).
The suggestion offed by
RK23 makes perfect sense to me. If, on the day of *purchase* the cheapest (presumably restricted) business class (I am not using fare basis to avoid confusion) was $600 and restricted coach could be purchased for $200, the refund ought to be $400. If, on the other hand, the passenger (not OP in this case) bought a full J fare ticket, then the refund should be the difference between that ticket price and the cheapest *unrestricted* coach ticket for sale on the day of purchase. It is just apples-to-apples: remove all the other variables like refundability and get to two tickets for sale on the same date where the only difference is the cabin of travel.
It is completely absurd for the airline to say: "You paid $600 for a super discounted business class ticket 3 months ago, but the walk up coach fare on the day of travel is $700, so you get no refund."