Originally Posted by
mvoight
Unlike FEDEX, the fare paid to AA doesn't guarantee you arrival by a specific time. It's like a request for an aisle seat. AA will attempt to get you there, but there are no guarantees you will get an aisle seat or arrive on the flight of your choosing.
What if AA charged extra for seat assignments? Would you not expect to receive that money back if you reserved an aisle seat but got a middle instead?
That's the substance of the argument here: you pay extra for something, you don't receive it, should you still have to pay the extra money? It's interesting that you also don't want to be shipped in a box, but that's also not germane to the discussion. brp is probably right that it's impractical to actually implement a scheme to get your money back in these cases, but as AA moves to a more a la carte model, there's going to be an increasing expectation that they actually deliver on the specific services that they charge for.
This led to an interesting thought, though: maybe AA should have something like "Priceline" fares where you don't get to choose the specific flights you go on at the time of booking, you just go "sometime" that day. You'd also get less flexibility when it comes to schedule changes. Choosing the flights you want would cost extra. This seems like a more useful way to distinguish between business and leisure travelers than most of the things that airlines do today.