Seth,
Yes, tix were, all along, 40K (what AA calls) domestic fc plan ahead awards x 2.

So you are saying CO has no liability at all, and US Air might owe, best case, the difference in miles for one leg, between fc and coach ? ie, 40K minus 25K, divided by two, so 7500 miles per each (mine and spose) ? That speaks nothing for the hassle and inconvenience of the day...and merely mathematically reimburses me for the difference in seat value. I would not be thrilled with this type of an offer but understand your logic.

Did CO not incur the literal liability of two FC seats by "agreeing" to sell to US Air two rule 240 FC 1-way seats ? IOW the "US Air originated/frequent flyer" distinction was now superceded by the terms of our new ticket ?

BTW - the CO supervisor also informed me, politely, that CO had the legal right to refuse a rule 240 transfer for up to four hours after it happened, which would have put us right back to US Air to re-book, but he was not going to be doing that in this case and would do everything possible to get us our fc seats. So - seems to me to be further - anecdotal perhaps - evidence that he felt *some undetermined* liability to fill the tix requirement. No ?

Yes, I agree....in retrospect it would have been a miracle to have gotten two fc seats on a flight so proximate to the same timeline as our original US Air flight, on a busy SUN afternoon no less, but CO made it clear they could and would be glad to get us confirmed fc seats on a flight about 4 hrs later....so it sure appeared to me they accepted some if not all of the liability, FC liability at that, not just "coach liability*. Confirmed further by the fact they waitlisted us for fc and did everything short of bumping actual confirmed fc passengers....to get us out two fc seats. Of course, given that, we could have kept our delayed, confirmed fc seats on US Air to begin with....and would have had the initial CO ticket agent been forthright and told us what our status was when we first presented our bags and US Air issued CO coupon....all could have been avoided.

Guess my point is, even if US Air had no obligation to Rule 240 us if I understand your first point, the fact is they did, immediately, do so...which caused a certain chain of events to occur.

THEN, because CO sold two FC seats a mere 1hr 30min or so prior to a full flight already, they furthered the screwup....and IMO, at least logically, the fact the seats were originally were ff tickets...was now lost and not an issue and the *new* CO FC seat tickets I held in my hand had as much value and liability as any other FC tix. As far as I could tell, and I can go back and scrutinize my US Air-issued CO FC coupon, there is not a mention made that my original FC seats were ff tix-originated.

As for whether I was serious about asking/expecting cash value refund of the different between the two classes....well, we know, absolutely, the actual cash value of the revenue AA/US Air/CO whomever reveived for those miles was 2cents or more....so these were $800-valued r/t tickets, or worth $400 ea for the return leg in my calculation, and I bet CO charged US Air more than $400 ea for the return leg since US Air *bought* FC seats...so guessing CO probably charged US Air as much as $500 for this one-way return leg FC seat, which they then were unable to provide...and I know I could have sourced at $200 or less for a discounted, crappy seat waaaay in the back of coach, when I otherwise booked my US Air tix...yes, I could see $200 or more due us for a downgrade that was entirely not our fault. Subjective though the value I place on the downgrade may be, had CO not screwed up by SELLING a FC seat it didn't have, on an involuntary bump from another airline, we would have never been in the situation we ended up in. Yes, we can blame a "slow computer update" or we can blame CO forgreedily overbooking both FC and coash, it turned out, as they were then trying to solicit coach bumps by as many as 5-10 seats before we left.

maximizing revenue is one thing...selling seats that really aren't there and literally inconveniencing passengers in hopes of 100% sold seats....just further confirms my distrust of the airlines. What was today's fiasco fairly worth ? That's the question.

Appreciate your input Seth. I'm not a horse's a** about this, and US air and CO were very polite through al of this, and clearly CO was stumped as to how the tickets were ever allowed to be sold given there was no fc seat inventory to sell, and I am safely back, but it was a real lesson in computer foul-ups, airlines' meeting my continued low expectations of them, and, IMO, greed on the part of CO in selling overbooked fc seats as proximate as a 1hr, 30min departure, to then let the "gate agent sort it out"...at the expense and inconvenience of the passengers.

That's just my layman's read on what happened today.

[This message has been edited by ILUVCITIBANK (edited 10-13-2002).]