I am EP and have the Barclays AA Silver Aviator Mastercard. I used the companion pass to book myself and a friend a RT ticket PHX-CLT-EYW. The outbound was normal. On the return, EYW-CLT was fine. Here is where it gets crazy, and this has never happened to me before, and I've not seen any reports of this happening to anyone else.

As this was a companion pass, both me and my friend are on the same record locator. We board the plane in Group 1. I'm 17A, he's in 17C. Near the end of boarding, another passenger (I assume a standby that cleared) comes up and tells the FA that I'm in her seat. Her printed boarding pass says 17A. I show my boarding pass (a screenshot, not from the AA app) to the FA, and then she tells the other passenger to take any available seat. I believe she then sat in 16E. My iPhone shows live AA app updates on the lock screen, and it shows me in 17A still. Shortly after takeoff and in the air, the AA app on the lock screen shows dashes where 17A used to be. Basically, I have no seat assignment. Meanwhile, my companion is still listed in 17C. However, when pulling up the reservation on his phone, only he is in the record locator. My AA app shows no record of the reservation or my flight at all!

(This is now problematic, because I tried to buy food items while in flight. However, on the FA phones, I am not listed in 17A and not on the manifest at all. They can't see that I am EP on their end. I did get the complimentary item. And yes, this is a first world problem.)

After landing in PHX, I head to the Admirals Club to get this sorted out. The desk agent tells me they split the record locator up, and asks, did you take the flight? LOL. Clearly I did, or I would not be in PHX right then and there. Doing some more research, he sees that the agents in CLT split up the original reservation, and he wrote down the new reservation number for me to reference. He then asked a colleague to help decipher the notes, but both can't tell what happened. They then instruct me to call the EP customer service line after a few days to allow the miles (LP, award miles, and million miles) to post to my account. In the app and on the website, all the miles from EYW-CLT post that evening. Nothing from CLT-PHX posts.

So I call the AA EP customer service line today. I retell the entire story. The phone rep put me on hold 2 times for ~5 min while she discussed my case with a supervisor and the reservations department. Ultimately, they are unable to figure out what happened. She tells me there is no record of me having taken the flight, and I am not on the flight manifest that day! They also say I should be issued a credit for the missing flight leg CLT-PHX (LOL), even though I took the flight. I do have screenshots of my boarding pass, and of the app when my seat was taken away. The rep then tells me I need to contact AA online and make a complaint. I can supply the boarding pass (if needed, even though you can't attach files to an online complaint). And someone there "should" be able to fix this and make sure my miles are attributed correctly...

This is so strange. How did the CLT agents screw this up so badly? I was curious if anyone had any thoughts as to why or what happened? And isn't this a bigger issue if the flight manifest was incorrect? If a terrible accident happened and the flight went down, the manifest is wrong!?!