FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - GUIDE to Trip Credit, Flight Credit, Travel Voucher, Gift Card, Refund
Old Aug 18, 2022, 3:13 pm
  #602  
seawolf
Original Member
 
Join Date: May 1998
Location: NYC
Programs: AA 2MM, Bonvoy LTT, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 14,620
Originally Posted by ezefllying
Speaking of which:

Last night, I did call in to pay for a reservation I had placed on hold using a flight credit. To my surprise, I got an agent within a few seconds, despite having no status. The agent had to put me on hold to talk to his rates desk, but the whole call ultimately took ten minutes.

About two hours later -- around 11:45 PM, just before the hold would have expired -- I checked the reservation on the app to look up seats. It still showed as on hold, even when I refreshed. The flight credit was still in my account. I hadn't gotten a confirmation email.

So, I called again. A friendly and incompetent agent spent about ten minutes trying to research it before transferring me to another agent or department. I waited on hold for 20 more minutes, at which point a competent agent read through the notes that the inept agent had left, put me on hold for about five minutes, and got the ticket issued.

I should not have spent 45 minutes and a degree of diligence trying to use a $260 flight credit to pay for a $220 one-way nonstop domestic ticket.

I'm very close to writing a DOT complaint and copying someone important at AA. Or I might be a bigger jerk and write a letter directly to DOT's assistant secretary for aviation. Not asking for help with the ticket, but asking DOT to start penalizing carriers, like AA, that fail to comply with the spirit of DOT's consumer guidance by making credits usable. I realize that letter probably gets kicked down to DOT's complaint department, but I'll do what I can to write it as a policy request, not a help-me-with-my-problem complaint.

Because I am confident that people with less time, patience, or airline wherewithal than me -- particularly infrequent fliers who don't have a bunch of disposable income -- have given up or lost funds rather than using the credits they're entitled to.
If there is no additional payment involved, you can place reservation on hold and complete ticketing with flight credit via Twitter.

Originally Posted by FlyerBeek
1hr 26min 31secs - that's how long it took me on the phone tonight with the EXP desk to determine how much my 16 existing flight credits are worth. Of note, thankfully, none of that time was spent on hold waiting to reach an agent. And that doesn't include 2 additional credits that aren't even appearing in my AA wallet. Come on AA - there's got to be a better way of doing this!

-FlyerBeek
Can also be done via Twitter.

UA and DL definitely superior but Twitter will save you having to speak with AA.
seawolf is offline