Originally Posted by
TomWinMD
There are obviously plenty of customers loyal to AA's business/service, but like many customers, I believe you should get reasonable value in return for a payment, and AA has in effect mandated a policy of, 'I have your money, travel with me in the timeline I dictate or forfeit it.' in this circumstance. I won't claim or believe it would be different with any other airline, but you can either choose to work with your customers or not. In choosing not to, they have lost my business.
Of course this is your prerogative to go elsewhere, and if you wind up in a similar situation a year from now with nonrefundable, expired flight credits on another airline then what?
Even before COVID, the fares have been structured in the decades since deregulation such that a you can buy a ticket for a low-ish price that has restrictions, or a higher price that is fully unrestricted and eligible for full refund. When you clicked 'purchase', you were also accepting these kinds of terms and conditions of the fare. Now you're coming around 3 years later saying it's bad business to not honor an agreement you entered into. It wasn't AA that didn't provide you the service you paid for, it was you who canceled the service you paid a discounted price for with the stipulation that it is not refundable and has credit value for only a year (which became nearly 3) It's water under the bridge, but for future reference (with any airline), don't cancel a trip you're not able to take until very close to flight time. If the airline delays it significantly, cause a misconnect, or outright cancel it you could then request full refund since they aren't able to provide you what you paid for.
The silver lining of the pandemic policies left us with NO CHANGE FEES. Previously your $2000 in nonrefundable tickets would be subject to up to ~$200 per person to make any kinds of changes.