Nice try at laying out compliant but unfortunately miss the mark and unreadable due to too much info not related to the compliant.
Read thru a couple of pages and my understanding of what went down.
- Originally booked outbound July 15 to BGI and return July 23 from SVD.
- AA schedule changed and auto book from SVD to UVF in April.
- Complainant has a point that AA flight changed email needs a lot of work and that's assuming you even get a notification. We all know here often times we don't event get an email.
- Complainant noticed on July 4 (before travel begin) that their July 23 return from SVD now shows UVF and calls AA to be rebooked back on SVD.
- Complainant sees several unassigned seats on desired SVD flight and mistakenly believes flight has space and ask AA to move them back to SVD flights.
- AAgents indicate no availability on that flight or flights around those dates as inventory is zeroed out and is in fact oversold. This leads complainant to (mistakenly) believe they were scheduled change back in April due to overbook.
- Because the next available flight from SVD with space for the party is a week beyond original date, a fare collection is involved (complainant mistakenly believe this is change fee). Under Schedule Change policy, you can only be rebooked ± 1 day (other airlines are more generous).
AA should have just waived the fare difference given the schedule change was pretty drastic (not just to a different airport but a different country).
Complainant may think he is a seasoned traveler but not FT-level seasoned traveler.
A FT-level seasoned traveler would know:
- Bumping doesn't occur until date of departure.
- Rebooked to another flight months/weeks is a schedule change.
- Seat map is not an accurate reflection of actual availability (eg 7 unassigned seats on seat map does not equate to 7 new passengers can be booked into the flight).
- Change fee and additional fare collection are two different things.
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