American Airlines Website Inconsistencies
 

I am new to posting questions and information on forums so please forgive me if my etiquette is not quite right. With that said, there have been a couple of times in just the last few weeks that I have put reservations on "Hold" and had this issue. Just last night I put a reservation on "Hold" through AA.com and the screen said "Must purchase by 11:59 pm on March 27, 2013". Thank goodness I did not wait until tonight to purchase the ticket. Just this morning I returned to AA.com to see that the "On Hold" screen had changed to, "Must purchase by 12:00 pm on March 27, 2013". Has anyone else encountered this issue?

Welcome to Flyertalk, jsphillips29. I am moving your thread to the American Airlines Forum (Airline Programs).
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

While infrequent, I've had a couple of similar instances including losing some reservations altogether when I've gone to "ticket" them the next evening. Like I said, rare, but it has happened. I've no idea of the cause or the cure.

I bet AA means 12 midnight when it shows 12pm.

the hold is alway until next midnight at originating airport. (actual hold time is between 24-48 hours).

Occassionally the hold will expire early for a fare to be purchased by midnight. Nothing like this, I'd call web services.

Thanks for the info. I am just a bit suspicious that it is not a "glitch" but more of a "bait and switch". I have had the "Hold" time bite me a few times, as it sounds like you have, to the point that I now take screen shots whenever I put reservations on hold. To feed my "conspiracy theory", I was on the phone with Exec Plat line a couple of nights ago trying to use an E-VIP upgrade and the agent was urging me not to use the E-VIP and wait for my regular upgrade. Her urging lead me to ask how many seats were available in first class. She responded, "I can't tell you that because it is proprietary information." I pointed out the fact I could just look online at which time she told me, "The number of seats you see online are not real." Again, makes me think that AA is being sneaky and not honest and upfront with their pricing.

No, on both counts. That fact that you can call up and have the web services line honor the 24-hour hold on any reservation, even if what you see expires tends to contradict this conspiracy theory. Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence :)

As for the EXP agent and the SWU, the explanation for that is even simpler- declining quality/knowledge among EXP agents that has been noted too many times, unfortunately.

Cheers.

Sometimes I think it's because they may refare and the special fare you booked may be gone.

But the whole point of the hold is that they'll honor the old fare until the hold expires.

I have been on the opposite end of this glitch--had a hold until 11:59 PM next day. Called next day and asked to extend because the fare was still there. The hold was extended for a week :). I didn't end up purchasing though so I'm not sure if it would have worked in the end.

Have holds ever expired around noon? Don't they usually terminate at midnight of whatever time zone the departing leg leaves from?

This sounds like an "AM" "PM" glitch on AA.com.

I've once had to argue with someone that 12pm is NOT midnight.

I want to believe it is a glitch. But, last night I put a flight on hold. The AA message said, "On Hold until 11:59 pm on March 27, 2013. This morning I logged on to purchase the ticket, and thank goodness I did, as the message was now, "On Hold until 12:00 pm on March 27, 2013", and the fare I had put on hold was no longer available for the flights I wanted.

That still doesn't mean it's not a glitch. You could have called AA and asked when your hold expires, if you really wanted to figure out what was going on. If they say 11:59pm or midnight, then the 12pm thing could be a glitch.

it does depend on your departure city time zone. I booked tickets back from HNL one way award seats, and the "My trips" detail for the reservation said book by Tuesday at 11:59 pm HST. When I looked at the summary of my reservations, however, it mysteriously seemed to give me a day extra to purchase the ticket, saying essentially held until Wednesday, when in fact reading the details it only holding till Tuesday, due to the time difference between my home and HNL.

The people commenting on my situation I posted about said it was a well known issue with AA.com. Def have to be careful about it.

In actuality, I have logged in to purchase an award ticket after the hold had supposedly expired (missed it by about 10 minutes) and it still was there and I was able to pay for the ticket fee.

I noticed the same thing the other day, but had no problem ticketing it over the phone (was using a voucher) past the stated time of noon. I double-checked the email I got for the hold, which indeed said 11:59 PM. I guess someone at AA web services just doesn't know the difference between 12 PM and 12 AM.

Agree that malice is not likely. I had a reservation on hold last week and went to purchase the next morning. When I went to purchase, got the message that the fare had changed. To my delight, it had dropped by over $100.