Originally Posted by
RachelG
First of all, a big thank you to you!!
Now, as a Mom of a Marine, I have actually had experience with this. Buy the cheapest fare and hope for the best. In one case, my son's orders changed and we had to change his travel dates. Technically, we should have not been able to do so without penalty (it was not a military fare), but the agent was very nice when I explained the situation and let us change it.
On another occasion, I have to pay the difference in the fares and $100 change fee, but the fare difference was minimal, and we were still ahead from what we would have been if we had bought the military fare.
AA really does try to treat you guys right (way to go, AA!), so I would buy the cheap ticket and go from there.
Thanks for your feedback. I have it on some pretty good authority that your experience is actually the norm; in fact, I think you shouldn't have had to pay anything in the second situation! But I too have found that AA is usually pretty generous when it comes to all things military related, and definitely one reason I stick with them over other airlines.
I meant to add in my previous post that one of the best things about the military fare is that it doesn't require advance purchase. So if you suddenly have leave available, or just want to take off at the last minute, the fares can provide you with significant savings over full-fare economy. By the way, the domestic fares that I take usually book as fare code NEMIL1QN. The one big drawback that I can think of is that with recent capacity reductions, "N" class is not always available at the last minute.