no1cub17

I sort of dropped the ball too. Found an actually reasonable fare for wife and I over Thanksgiving, put it on hold, was expiring last night, around 10 PM I call, of course hold times are insane. I have a hefty travel voucher I wanted to use. I request call back, estimated around 1.5 hours later. I don't get called until 12:30 AM. I stay on hold for a half an hour and still don't get connected to the agent, so give up and go to bed. So needless to say, fare is gone, and shot up by $200 today when I try to re-book. This sucks. Question for you experts: If last night I would've just paid for it the old fashioned way, would I have been able to call AA today and explain the situation - and potentially switch my method of payment from credit card to voucher? I know I partially dropped the ball - now I'm regretting not just buying it and dealing with the voucher later. But it also absolutely sucks that vouchers from cancelled tickets can't be used online. Makes them way harder to use than it needs to be, and us customers occasionally get the shaft in the process. Which is probably Dougie's goal at the end of the day, so nothing's gonna change.

JonNYC

Right, his fault. You forgot the mandatory "#newamerican"

cmd320

In the past I've had GLD/PLT agents able to resurrect expired holds and re-hold or purchase them for me. This is usually within a few minutes of them expiring though. I doubt at this point you would be able to do that, but it may be worth a shot.

bmchris

I would say here is the biggest lesson learned. It's easier to influence your own behavior than that of others.

I've lost award seats on hold because I forgot to ticket, paid for hotel nights I forgot to cancel. So now I set early reminders for myself in Outlook.

Often1

It's more than a bit paranoid to think that AA has a corporate policy of cutting the # of phone agents so that holds will expire and people will lose favorable fares. Don't forget that while there are limited occasions when a fare is lost due to advance purchase requirements and the like, the most common reason for a fare to be lost is that someone else bought it when the hold expired and AA's RM/IM systems dumped the space back into a favorable bucket.

Put simply, it's more than likely that someone else got OP's great fare. Why would AA care which person got it?

The bottom line here is that all it takes is a bad storm around ORD -- as there was last night -- and hold times will jump from 10 mins to 3 hours in a NY (well Chicago) minute. All suggests not waiting until the last second.

My thought here is to simply buy whatever it is and then to backtrack by webform. AA can see exactly when you called and they it called back as well as what the hold was for and when it expired. Maybe they take pity.

bmchris

Also DFW last night. On the ground for 1 hour after landing without a free gate, in addition to a delayed flight before it.

Thursday night - I'm usually late even when there are no weather issues.

DataPlumber

IMHO, it is completely your fault.

cmd320

This is actually unlikely. If it were held for 24 hours by the OP and couldn't be reproduced, then that fare likely expired at midnight due to advanced purchase rules.

SJOGuy

DFW was a zoo last night. Storms with 70-mph winds rolled in about 4 pm and everything became a mess after that with flights cancelled or delayed one, two, three hours or more. That contributed to the long hold times.

Exec_Plat

Me too. Once I had a biz fare that was booked via phone with 3 day hold. System cancelled it. Agent found note where agent had specified 3 day hold. Took almost 2 hours with multiple RM calls to resurrect. the key is if the inventory and fare is there, it is a no brainer- it is when there is no inventory that it becomes difficult

I disagree- fares dont change nearly as often as fare class inventory.

AA will adjust lowest fare class minute to minute....people view a flight as a bucket of seats and fares - and they just gradually get bought up... but AA RM is constantly adjusting inventory in classes.

I have an agent who believes that AA tracks your browsing history and can actually reduce low price inventory when you return to look at a fare- as a way of trying to influence people to buy on first visit. I think he is paranoid.

I think.

PS having said that, we are 50 days from thanksgiving- so could have been a 50 day fare I suppose....

imapilotaz

I had the EXP line "re-instate" a fare at about 130am CT once... I explained that I had fallen asleep and forgotten about it, and when I awoke at 115am, I freaked out and called in. It was a change from a 14 day to a 7 day fare, and jumped over $200. She took about 5 minutes and had it purchased right then.

I've also done them after midnight (latest was about 1230am online) and it still let it go through.

MAH4546

There's millions of reasons to despise Dougie and the US management team. This isn't one of them. Honestly, if it was that important, you should have just booked with cash.

someotherguy

Deleted (didn't read the OP correctly).

arollins

I certainly agree that I hate the fact that you can not redeem vouchers on-line. I find it a hassle that you need to call or use an agent to redeem them. It would be great if they do an electronic voucher instead. This is not Dougie's issue, as this mode of payment for canceled tickets has been in use way before DP was involved with AA.
I find that your rant has no merit, in the end you choose to wait till 2hrs prior to hold expiration to call, you choose not to buy the ticket at the time you had the opportunity when the hold time was 1.5 hrs, and requested a call back. When the call back came through, it looks that you had to wait again, you could have re-do the reservation again hopefully at the same price and extend the hold another 24hrs to try back latter. You have not mentioned if you called the desk, I'm sure they can see the history of the reservation and try to accommodate the price for you.

bucketlist

As noted by other posters, call and they might reinstate.

I had an extreme case - had the mistake (?) AUH...LAX itinerary on hold, for $380 ai rt so, and thought the hold expired at midnight CST - it actually expired at midnight Abu Dhabi time. Called the EXP line about 2 hours after expiration, they recreated the itinerary (for my original price) and let me ticket it...

Certainly there's a record of your calling and late call-back - it's sure worth a try.

Having said that - during your call, would be best to admit that you're late, should have ticketed sooner, but would appreciate anything they can do to help.