Dave Noble

I don't really see the analogy at all. The airline has entered into agreeing to providing transportation between 2 points in a particular class of service. This is being provided

Austinrunner

An all-you-can-eat buffet like Golden Corral does not promise an unlimited supply of mashed potatoes. They simply promise to get you to your destination (full belly) with whatever equipment (food and drinks) is available when you show up.

ijgordon

Sorry, a little late as I'm on vacation... AA is most certainly offering, at the present time, two fares for one-way JFK-LAX travel, $2915 for A and $3354 in F, on AA.com (4/24/14 FWIW). I think there may be P fares for r/t travel too. So they can certainly yield the cabins higher on the A321T if they choose to, it doesn't matter that there are still 10 seats, particularly if demand is higher. And sure, they appear to have a legal right to sub the aircraft with no notice, but if they do this with no compensation, they risk pissing off their (high value) customers.

skunker

There better be popcorn shrimp or someone is going to get hurt!

I haven't been to Goldern Corral in 15 years, but I still remember those "shrimp."

mmjaysee

Good question! The way I noticed was I logged on to aa.com and pulled up my reservation to see if any better seats had opened up in F for us. It had our seats as 4A, 4F and the aircraft type as "32B". But the seating chart had the 762 F seating chart, and there is no row 4 in F on the 762. So I asked the agent and they said it looks like an equipment change happened the night before. But even when I went to book a new seat on aa.com, it still said "32B" but had the 762 seating chart. And even Flight Aware said A321. So the only way to really know is look at the seating chart and see if it looks like a 762 or 32B.

jordyn

The analogy was in jest, and not directly applicable to this situation (more like what happens when there's IRROPS).

Since you're back to talking fine print, I'll just refer up to earlier in the thread where it's already been hashed to death.

Schultzois

The way I read it, these kinds of subs are something where the company should routinely be choosing between its legal answer (usually arranged so that they aren't liable for anything) and its business answer (what actually keeps customers who buy F tickets happy enough to keep buying them in the future).

I would think, especially given all the buzz around the 32B equipment, there should be a fair amount of effort to recover good will if the equipment flown was not as initially advertised. BA has taken this policy in the later stages of their conversion from Old First to New First, and indeed (from what I've heard) prepare planes that still have their Old First product with a form, proactively offered, allowing the customer to choose between cash value in a BA travel voucher or some number of miles. And, I would add, I find the gap between BA's Old First and New First a lot smaller than the gap between 762 F and 32B F...

As someone who has a great deal of personal flexibility in where/what/with whom I fly, I specifically elected to fly from LAX instead of SFO recently so that I could be in F on the new 32B. I'd have been rather upset if after going to the trouble to have changed my plans, and buying a separate SFO-LAX on the side, I'd have ended up in a 762 after all. I'd know that in terms of obligation AA's rules don't oblige anything, but my experience has been that customer service tends to find it worthwhile to make at least a reasonable gesture to customers who have bought an expensive premium cabin ticket with specific expectations that ended up not getting met.

And finally, having flown the new equipment out of LAX, I give full marks both to the plane and to the airport handling for Flagship F. The ground experience checking in (and being escorted to the front of security by someone who even carried my carry-on that whole way as well) - really impressive.

mmjaysee

Interesting. Is something BA did a long time ago or something they are doing currently? I was on BA F the other day from LHR-ICN and it was the old First. I heard there was a new F coming out timed with the A380, but the plane I was on wasn't retrofitted.

clubman

The active compensation for getting OF is fairly recent.
It's 50k Avios which is great (especially if you booked with miles/points in the first place...)

mmjaysee

Hmmm... I had a paid ticket that was issued via AA. I wasn't offered anything...

clubman

Do you have a BAEC account?

mmjaysee

No. I'm an AA loyalist, for better or worse.

Austinrunner

When did you marry AA? Was the honeymoon good?

mmjaysee

Unfortunately I didn't marry AA, but AA did get us to our honeymoon last year.

Schultzois

Although I've not experienced it first hand, I had the impression BA's offer when in old First was a cash travel value voucher, or miles, and that it was supposed to be proactive. This is all secondhand for me (via FT) though, so I couldn't say for certain - and whether it's route-specific.

A note to BA Customer relations (if you were indeed expecting New First, which by now I think is a reasonable expectation) could be worthwhile for you.
The thread (over in the BAEC forum) that I was thinking about when I wrote earlier is the following: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...y-offered.html

I had something similar (although slightly more obvious) happen recently on AA, where an equipment sub caused me to end up in J instead of F. I was flying as a BAEC Gold (OW EMD), so no AADV number on record (although I do have one still). At the airport and onboard they didn't know what offer to make in order to account for the change, and nothing happened automatically. Once I wrote in about it, I was emailed a $700 AA travel voucher as a courtesy.

Obviously mine was more clear as a downgrade, but reading around FT I get the impression that AADV members experiencing something like that might have been dealt with automatically, and all others left to ask CR afterwards. BA may work in the same way, where they have an automatic standard in place for their BAEC members, but they will do something of comparable value for other OW FQTV members (or even run-of-the-mill F-buying passengers ). Certainly wouldn't hurt to ask.