Rodraid

I booked a ticket for my aunt back on April 24th with her credit card. I initially looked at the itinerary through her name and the record locator because she doesn't have an AA account and I wanted to have access to her itinerary. Right after I booked it, it said purchased as I expected it to. The next day I looked at it again to change her seat and it said "ticketed" so I thought everything was fine.

She gets to the airport on May 19th and the ticket counter person says you don't have a ticket for this flight. The ticket counter person said something is wrong because I see your ticket and says "ticketed" but your credit card was declined?? She tried to fix it but eventually told my aunt there isn't anything she can do and if she wants to get to her destination she must purchase a new ticket.

The original ticket was $259.40 but on the day of travel the price was about $600. I have purchased a lot of tickets and I thought once it went "ticketed" payment had been made and everything was a go???

Is there anyway to get them to honor the original ticket price?

Thanks,
Rod

mvoight

Was the card declined? Was it charged? If the card was declined, I don't know why they would honor the original price

Happy

Keyword - payment had not been made because the card is declined.

Your post seems to be the 2nd one on similar case I read about today - the other one was a $200 x 4 = $800 charge that the card is declined, therefore no ticket.

I always wonder why a charge of several hundreds on airline ticket did not show up on people's credit card and people do not know about it? Or they secretly hope the airline had some glitch and they would get a free flight, or the charge would appear much later but they would be just fine to fly on the tickets they had purchased but never paid yet?

I dont understand this kind of oversight. It is not like $20 bucks, but $200+ and in the other case, $800+...

On top of that, despite the status changed to "ticketed" - an e-ticket should land in your inbox within the next 24 hours. If that does not show up on schedule, then there is something wrong and you need to look at. Also, once it is truly ticketed, the button of Print Itinerary and Receipt would show up, at least that is for all domestic tickets with AA being the 1st carrier.

brp

I don't know about "getting them" to do it, because I'm sure that they have some way to weasel out of this (and I don't know all of the legal nuances). However, I fully believe that they have an obligation to have notified you/your aunt sooner if the card was declined, and certainly not to have marked it as "Ticketed" and acted as if all were good until she was at the airport.

I would call CS and appeal to them (as EXP) on the grounds of common sense. It may take several calls, but I would hope that someone will realize just whose screw-up this was.

Edit: Wow, I'm really going to have to disagree with the two folks who posted above while I was typing. The system should not go to Ticketed (the final state) if it is not. Sure, people could/should look at their credit cards, but that doesn't let a poorly-designed system off the hook.

Good luck!

Cheers.

siankaan1

Probably due to OP using aunt's credit card and possibly email. I have relatives who, if I did what the OP did, wouldn't pick up on any of these clues either.

gerald5

I agree some fault should be with AA. I seem to recall the last time my CC was declined the system stayed on 'Purchased', but it was still my responsibility to call in and get the hold released. AA should do a better job in handling card declines.

Happy

I believe the system would send a test on the CC when ticketed - if the $1 charge went through, the system would then change to ticketed because the card was seemingly good. When is the actual ticket price is sent through? I have no idea - but based on the delayed e-ticket email sometimes hours after status changed, I may guess the actual charge might be in queue for batch processing - then at processing the card was declined for whatever reason(s) - sometimes could be as simple as communication failure at the moment and the request did not go through - just as you would occasionally encounter at the POS counter and your card has to be swiped a few times before it went through...

Of course an automatic email notification such as Amazon would do, to inform you the card is being declined on your purchase, would be a desired approach. Amazon does those $1 tests all the time when you first placed your orders but at shipment it would of course authorize it again - too often a big ticket item such as a flat screen TV, the charge would be declined if your banks are on super sensitive alert system - then Amazon would generate an automatic email to tell you so, despite sometimes such emails could land in your spam box ... Ideally, we would like AA system to have such function as well...

However, I still think the responsibility still lies with the purchaser to monitor the purchase price has been correctly charged and the e-ticket has arrived to ensure the process, i.e. the purchase, is completed.

Happy

So if your relatives purchase something for several hundreds of dollars, yet their cards do not show such charge, they wouldn't pick up such clue that the purchase is not complete?

Missing the email is understandable. Missing several hundreds of charge on one's credit card on a purchase made is hard to believe.

siankaan1

My mother in law is in her 80's and an excellent example. My dad is approaching 80 and I'm starting to worry about his forgetfulness. I don't know how many times I've told him how the interest on his iBonds work, and every time it comes as a revelation. It's a very delicate business, helping people gracefully lose their independence and capability, especially the people to whom in some sense you'll always be their child. Don't be so quick to judge people.

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

There are also a lot of people who make purchases, and just pay the bills at the end of the month without actually auditing to see if all the charges are correct. I'm not saying that's financially the best thing to do, but a lot of people probably do just that.

Happy

I live in a complex where up until the housing bubble, was populated by seniors retired from their cold NE homes. I fully understand the dilemma you are facing.

Your case is different - in your case someone needs to take over the management of their finance and such due to their age. It is certainly not an easy task to persuade aging parents to let their children handling their finances but to their and your interests, this needs to be done. I hope at the minimum you have a POA in place so in the emergency you can exercise it.

However, in the OP's scenario, even his aunt might be in the similar situation as your aging parents, since OP booked her ticket, he should have monitored the ticketing - by a simple act of printing the RECEIPT. The button of the Print Receipt and Itinerary would NOT show up if the ticket is not paid yet.

Often1

Was the card declined? If so, AA is under no obligation to either issue a ticket or to honor a fare on a ticket which was not properly paid for. You are lucky that there was still a seat for your aunt. When booking, you can list a secondary email for exactly this reason (where, as here you were booking for your aunt on her credit card). That way, you would have been alerted to not receiving the e-ticket notification.

Charges on my business and personal credit cards show up as "PENDING" within minutes. When they don't, I know that something has gone wrong.

Happy

That is not a good excuse to push the responsibility to AA about the ticket is not actually ticketed.

As they say, Innocence is no defense, you know?

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

Oh no. I'm not saying it's AA's responsibility. I was just saying I understand a lot of people don't check the bills to see if they were charged.

Why would AA's system show ticketed in the first place? I would say more than checking card statements, something should have been seen as fishy when an actual ticket that you could change seats on never appeared. I assume that when the card was declined, the record was taken off.

However, given the older age, some loved one should have been in charge of this whole thing.

siankaan1

These threads remind me of that campfire game "pass it on". We have no idea how old the OP's aunt was.