demkr

Unfortunately, I am not surprised. I'm not a fan of AA customer service like so many here are-simply because there seem to be constant technology/communication issues.

Perhaps you can try to find another agent. Waivers were issued for this as far as I know and you should be able to make flight changes without a change fee.

Refer the AAgent to Northeast Travel Policies 1,2 London Heathrow Travel Policy if you meet the requirements for them. If so, I would ask the AAgent to look up the last person who assisted you and write them up for falsely suggesting you should pay a change fee. Good luck-because if there is a C availability on the direct flight, I'd say it should not generally be a problem.

Dallas49er

Off topic:

Can we repectfully agree to disagree?

I would rather the airline be able to do what it does-take people from AAA to BBB, and manage that business, which is difficult enough with IRROPS, without the additional hurdle of exorbadent fines being added to the mix. IMHO-This whole tarmac rule was instituted because 10's of passengers were inconvenienced.

If one had flown enough prior to this tarmac rule, one would probobly have at least one 3+ hour story (mine is in 1989. UA SFO-EWR, DC-10 at the gate, creeping mechanical, followed by FA's going illegal (newly illegal FA's eventually dead-headed with us), frantic search for legal FA's, followed by pilots going illegal, frantic search for pilots, followed by "flow control" issues. If you wanted to get off, you had to rebook-no getting off to stretch your legs-"We could go at any minute.". On plane-4 1/2 hours.

Back on topic:

Was on #1205 PHL-DFW today-guessed that it would not go. Luckily, I have the time and changed to 12/30. Guessed wrong-it left today 25 minutes late, and is estimated arriving 4 minutes early. Oh well.

Happy New Year and Happy travels in 2011. May 100% of your upgrade requests in 2011 clear at your earliest window (after mine )!

demkr

What a great late Christmas gift! Happy New Year to you and safe travels

Elusive

Got a notification via email this morning:

American Airlines Flight 2556
Date: December 29
Departing: Las Vegas, Nevada
Arriving: New York, Kennedy
Status: We are sorry this flight has been canceled

We are currently working to rebook your itinerary and will update you shortly.

15 minutes later I got the below:

We apologize for the inconvenience, but we have been unable to reschedule you on another flight.

If you would like to reschedule, please call us at 1-800-843-6200.

I called EXP line and agent is able to find something 3 days later but stated he could not provide any compensation or accommodations as this is a weather related problem. I politely explained that while I am aware of the weather storm that occurred in the past, the forecast for tomorrow is fine for both cities and that other airlines are flying and still selling seats for this route. Agent states this is a "trickle down" effect and that he isn't able to rebook me on another carrier.

Happy New Year AA.

ilovetofly

Have you tried another agent?

I just had a similar problem as well. Flight was cancelled. I asked to rebook on another carrier, the EXP agent said the same thing.

Luckily, it all worked out well for me without another carrier in the end.

Good luck.

swag

From what CNN is reporting, JFK and LGA are still disasters. LGA has a ground stop, already more inbound planes than they can handle. Employees can't get to the airports, including flight crews, and presumably also baggage handlers, TSA, etc.

rollthere

I have to give a a tremendous thumbs down for the way they have handled the proactive cancellations. Primarily the trans-con cancellations flown by the 762s. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize that if all the aircraft needed to fly the flights from NYC tomorrow (any tomorrow, not necessarily 12/29) are currently in California and can't even take off, then they're not going to be able to use those aircraft tomorrow in NYC.

Today I was supposed to fly RDU-JFK-SFO. I actually called on Sunday to see if there was anything AA and I could do for each other, for example getting me directly from MIA-SFO, thus freeing up a seat out of RDU and JFK for other displaced travelers today. However, that was on Sunday and I was told that there were no such schedule change accommodations being made because everything "would be back to normal" by Tuesday. Okay, as things deteriorate further I call back on Monday. At that point my JFK-SFO flight 177 was still scheduled, however, I had a bad feeling about the backlog at JFK. This time the agent was willing to do just about any possible rerouting, however, by that point all flights for today (Tuesday 12/28) had been completely zeroed out and there was no availability anywhere, except my original routing that was still scheduled. So I decided to stick with my plan of heading up to Raleigh and beginning the dance. I checked AA.com just to make sure my flight was still scheduled and then opened up EF only to find the flight listed as canceled! How it was listed as canceled on EF before it was listed canceled on a.com or sent by text message really ticks me off! I then studied the EF history for trans-con flights and saw that absolutely no flights had left LAX or SFO on Sunday or Monday -- how could they possibly think that Tuesday flight was not going to be impacted?

So basically, to make a short story long, I believe that the way AA handled the proactive cancellations was entirely unacceptable. Unlike many of the short segment flights that somehow may or may not make it out, the flights flying trans con that have 14 or 15 hours leadtime after departure from JFK were known WELL in advance of their ultimate cancellation. I'm not saying that I would've actually gotten to SFO any sooner, but I found it appalling that the EXP agent was encouraging me to head to JFK when it "should have" been widely known that the necessary aircraft was not even scheduled to depart the West Coast! Encouraging travelers to show up at an already backlogged airport where AA has no responsibility to take care of you there. Remarkable!

/rant

Elusive

Yes, I did, got the same answer. This agent even acted surprised when I asked and then asked me if I "had seen the news from this weekend". I asked him if he saw the weather report for tomorrow. He said the airports were still digging out and their aircraft "was all over the place".

I ended up settling for a connecting flight a few days later. I told him I was EXP and my wife was Gold. I am bit a low on 500 mile upgrade coupons and asked politely if he would consider giving her a complimentary upgrade since inventory existed. He said "no".

demkr

Take a look at the United forum and see how they're treating elites w/ IRROPs. Many have received compensation, hotel vouchers, etc. With AA its never their fault and they couldn't care less, no matter what your status is. It's like night and day

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I would have called back. EXP agents while overall very good differ in their proactive stance towards rebooking. Yes, given the storm that was approaching it seems that for EXPs AA would have tried to reroute people ahead of time away from the storm if seats were available. Certainly, MIA/SFO would not have been impacted.

rollthere

On Sunday and Monday I called the EXP line a combined four times. On Sunday the agents were absolutely certain that operations would be "back to normal" by today 12/28 and therefore were not permitted to make schedule changes. Remember, the first waiver that came out only applied to 12/26 and 12/27, and not yet to today 12/28. As of yesterday when they extended the waiver through today the MIA-SFO flight was completely zeroed out!

Again, it's simply mind-boggling that AA did not foresee (a.k.a. admit) the systemic extent a total chokehold on their NYC ops would have. Had they issued a waiver earlier and extended it one or two days I would have been able to make some sort of accommodations Sunday I'm quite sure. There has to be a reason for this utterly idiotic decision not to extend the waiver, I'm sure it's a financial reason, but I will bet they are regretting it now -- but as we all know, that doesn't mean they'll do anything different next time.

demkr

I've been a broken record on FT-But i'll say it again. AA is almost always the last to issue waivers (if they do at all) and they are more restrictive than other airlines are. Its becoming a complete culture of stinginess-and no regard to consumer loyalty during IRROPS and constant inconveniences. So once again, it's another FAIL on AA's part to be even reasonably flexible.

I've got most of my flights for next year booked on AA-but I'm continuing to reevaluate my loyalty. Why should I stick with them when another airline is consistently more flexible in these situations-especially to its frequent flyers?

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Sitting in Miami (where it was also cold as h...l) on Sunday the national channels and even the Miami channels were saying that airtraffic would be snarled at least until Tuesday. What was AA thinking, particularly when it comes to its EXPs. As it is, the Kettles are going to be sitting around LGA/JFK until the end of this week.

Lets face it, its the slowest week of business. The chances of someone needing a last minute flight at any cost to complete that big business deal were near nil.

phil_flyer

An update, AA managed to get me down to Brazil, and only 4 hours late. They really did a tremendous job getting the flight out, I understand from a flight attendant that it was one of only 4 that left last night (the others were to Rio, London, and someplace else). The captain came on the PA a couple of times during the flight to thank the passengers for their patience with the delay, but I spoke with him for a few minutes when he was out of the cockpit and expressed that we (the passengers) are grateful to AA for getting the flight out.

turnleftbrighteyes

Stuck another two days. Was originally scheduled to fly to LGA on Monday, was rebooked for a Wed. am flight, from an airport 125 miles away from my original departure point. No big deal. That flight was canceled earlier this afternoon. Now leaving on Friday, from my original departure airport. Not sure how much more fun-filled family hijinks I can take!

At least the wait times on the phone weren't bad.