This is the kind of thing I would push back on with them and escalate to a supervisor. You seem to have gotten lucky with the “hard part” - finding an alternative routing with award space. As this was an involuntary schedule change, AA should not be trying to make an additional collection, regardless of the rules of the award. It’s the kind of thing that probably would merit filing a complaint with the DOT as a post-purchase fare increase, which is not allowed. Alternatively, maybe you can convince AA to provide you with 35k miles per traveler as a gooodwill gesture for the inconvenience. That’s a separate department but you never know…