Originally Posted by aeo

Hi everyone,

Ever hear of this? I traveled from NYC - PVG last week. I purchased a ticket was from LGA to ORD, where I spent the night, and then from ORD to NRT; from there, I used miles to book an economy ticket on JAL from NRT to PVG. In Chicago, the wake up call never came. I woke up as the flight to NRT was leaving. The alarm clock in the room was broken, btw, and the hotel did offer a free night since I was stuck in Chicago for an extra night. I still take responsibility, but I was nonetheless very upset, nearly hysterical, when I called AA. The agent couldn't have been a nicer, more helpful person. I've never experienced such customer service. His work alone ensured another year of my travel exclusively on AA. Anyway, he put me on the next day's flight to NRT and waived the change fee. This is the favor, and it's a big one. I very much appreciated it and still do. The flight from NRT to PVG on the next day, however, had no economy seats, only business. I booked business for an extra 20k miles. Fine. The alternative was to spent the night in Tokyo, further shortening my already short (three day) trip to China to meet my family, who lives there, for Thanksgiving.
When I got to ORD the next day, the agent at check-in could not for some reason print the boarding pass for the supposedly electronic ticket on the JL flight without attaching a coupon to the back. She then issued paper tickets for the JL portion. The outbound was a business seat.
When I checked in in PVG for the return to NRT, both the economy and business reservations were in the computer, but the paper ticket the ORD agent had printed out was for T class, or economy. JL called AA in China (I assume; they just said they called AA), and whomever they spoke to said it was an economy seat. So I flew economy back to NRT.
This is again partly my fault since I did not check the class of service on the paper ticket for the return, though I'm not sure if that really was such a reasonable thing to do since the outbound was business and it was reasonable to assume the return would also be and since the 40k had been pulled from my account by departure time in ORD anyway.
Considering the circumstances, by my figuring, I'm out about 10k miles, since an economy award is 20K, business is 40K, and I flew one leg of both. That said, I'm also NOT out the waived $200 change fee; I'm also aware that it was ultimately my responsibility to wake up in time for my flight and to check my tickets to ensure they were correct in all respects. Given AA's (or at least the EXP agent's) generosity and my own failures here, I'm inclined to take the 10K "loss" and stay silent, happy. Agreed?