MJonTravel

It's times like these that I wish I still had SABRE! :-)

Let me do a little research on this through some of my moles on the inside. I'll post a reply in a bit. Like I said... it's been a little while and I'm a tad rusty. A "through-fare" would be a stop with no change and I think that the comp would be based on the entire fare as opposed to a connection where I believe the fare is apportioned to each segment. Now that I have an honest occupation, I've only been taking nonstops! So none of my receipts are good examples to look at!

MJonTravel

.............

hillrider

Yes, please do. It's not a "big stick", it's a public "accountability stick". The rest of the flying public benefitts by the DoT's system, so we as frequent flyers have to set the example and use it.

Plus I wouldn't be surprised if, like in many companies, AA has a separate group handling "special" complaints, and it's staffed with more senior people.

MVANHOU

Long story short, the AA rep that is handling the complaint is blowing me off. How do I get my complaint escalated. I'll post the two emails that I have received from AA and my response (in addition to the earlier one I posted.)

This is my response to the first email I received back from AA:

Dear XXXX:

Thank you for your response, but I believe you have misunderstood what happened. I understand that seats that are not claimed 30 minutes prior are possibly re-distributed. But at 30 minutes I should not lose my reservation, my assigned seat...yes, but not my reservation.

According to your website the policy to lose my reservation should be made at 15 minutes prior to departure.

From the American Airlines Website:

Check-in Requirements And Baggage Acceptance Cutoff Times, & AA's Conditions of Carriage: Customers must comply with minimum check-in requirements to retain their seats on the flight on which they are confirmed. When travel is completely within the U.S. including Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands recommended check-in time is at least 90 minutes prior to departure when checking baggage, and at least 60 minutes prior to departure if not checking baggage. For flights wholly within and departing from the U.S., you must check-in at least 15 minutes before scheduled departure time, and be present at the departure gate to retain your reservation and a seat.

As documented in my earlier email to you I was at the self service check-in, the check-in gate, AND the boarding gate 15 minutes prior to departure.

This is why I have asked for denied boarding compensation and I disagree with your statement below that I did not satisfy the established guidelines. I clearly did, and was still refused boarding.

I would be happy to discuss this with you on the phone if you would like. Attached is my original email to AA.

Thank you, and I appreciate your fast response in advance.



And this is the response I received back:

Thank you for your recent email to our Executive Offices. I appreciate the
opportunity to respond to your concerns.

I am sorry there is some confusion over the time you were actually ready to check in for your flight to Chicago.

Customers using AA Self Service Check-In must meet the following criteria:

**Have an electronic ticket
**Travel must be within the 50 United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
**No changes to reservation record
**Check in at least 30 minutes prior to departure

For additional information about this service, please visit http://www.aa.com/selfservice or contact us at 1-800-433-7300 (24 hours/daily).

While I recognize that you are convinced you completed the check-in process in time, based on the documentation in our records and information supplied by our agents, we must disagree.

We cannot change the circumstances that affected your travel with us on this occasion, however, I am willing to make a one time exception and mail you a transportation voucher. You may use the voucher toward the purchase of a ticket for future travel on American for yourself, a friend or relative for one year from the date of issue.

We truly appreciate your business, Mr. Vanhouten. Thank you again, for choosing to fly with American Airlines!

Sincerely,

XXXX
Customer Relations
American Airlines

MVANHOU

After getting her email I responded back with this:

XXXXX

I don't understand why you keep pointing at the self service check-in.

I was at the GATE more than 15 minutes before the flight, and I was refused boarding.

I think your records will confirm the fact I was at the Gate 15 minutes before the flight. You should see in your records the exact time I tried to use the self-service check in, and the exact time I was at the Counter, and the exact time when I was rebooked on a flight to St. Louis.

I was rebooked on the St. Louis flight 10 minutes after disagreeing with the gate agent that I was in compliance of the rules and I should be allowed onto my Chicago flight. I have no doubt that the Gate Agent is denying this situation. But I would ask for you to look at the time checks, they will tell you the exact story.

I would like to talk to someone in person. I don't want to file a formal complaint to the Department of Transportation but I will if I don't think AA is paying attention to what I believe is a serious matter. I don't feel like anyone is really listening to me.

My home and work #'s are on-file with AA, and I ask that you call at anytime. Please!

In return I received this email:

I've received your most recent email and am disappointed to learn that you are still upset with us. At the same time, I'm glad you provided us with additional comments -- it gives us another chance to improve. Please be assured, all your concerns about this situation have been taken very seriously. I'm sorry if I initially left you with the impression that they weren't.

Unfortunately, since your travel date has passed, it is impossible for us to recreate the situation and offer you a concrete explanation as to why things happened the way they did. In addition, your original comments have been forwarded to responsible management for internal review and to ensure appropriate follow up action.

Mr. Vanhouten, the complimentary voucher we sent you was intended to convey goodwill and to compensate in some way for the inadequate service you reported. I am sorry you are still dissatisfied. Nonetheless, it represents more than our obligation and, unfortunately, we must respectfully decline to extend additional compensation. Although I know you question the generosity of our offer, I hope you understand it represents an amount we believe to be fair and reasonable.

At American Airlines we are truly dedicated to making certain that our customers have a pleasant experience when flying with us. Your constructive criticism will help us meet that objective. The next time you travel with us, I'm confident things will go much more smoothly.

Thank you again, for choosing to fly with us!



I'm really ticked off that she said : based on the documentation in our records and information supplied by our agents, and then she says: Unfortunately, since your travel date has passed, it is impossible for us to recreate the situation and offer you a concrete explanation as to why things happened the way they did .

That just really burns me. I clearly am getting the run around now.

G- five

I think AA has gone above and beyond by offering you a voucher. Accept it and MOVE ON

Plato90s

I would go ahead and send a complaint to the DOT now. Clearly AA is sticking with its story that you didn't meet the OneStop check-in requirements, and thus did not check-in.

However, there's no requirement that you must check in at any specific location, merely that you do. Checking in at the gate is more than acceptable, and you did adhere to both the word and the spirit of the rules.

BenK

They haven't met their minimum requirements under terms of the legal contract they made with this pax. What have they gone above and beyond?

If AA was under contract to give the passenger a seat, and they did not, then he should follow up on it as much as he can--not just for his own benefit, but also for the benefit of the rest of us who fly AA and might someday get to the counter 20 minutes before departure to find that our seat has been given away on the phantom 30 minute rule. They are trying to buy him off with something less than their legal obligation. If they were apologetic and admitted that their gate agent may have been at fault, gave him a significant voucher for his IDB experience, then he might drop it.

pb9997

I beg to differ on the spirit of what you say.

Were that true, because AA sells tickets at low prices, during a war fare, I should accept not having a seat or, if the occasion arises offer my seat for free ?

Were that true, because miles have been offered by AA I should accept that on a free ticket I may lose all my rights ?

AA is a corporation, as any other, they're sticking to the version of the story that benefits them. It's up to us, the other part on the contract, to require rules to be abiden. Simple.

I abide by the rules, I expect the other part to as well. Simple.

Plato90s, thank you for your advices.

tt7

I hadn't been following this thread until this morning, so am playing catch-up ... so this summary is more for my benefit than anything else, to understand what happened.

1. Passenger tried to check in at kiosk 29 minutes before departure.
2. Kiosk wouldn't work so passenger checked in with agent at FC check in desk. Kiosk is now irrelevant; passenger is now checked in (by AA person).
3. Because passenger had not checked in 30 minutes prior to departure, seat assignment had been released. FC agent could not assign seat because either (a) there was no seat to assign or (b) flight was now under gate control so only the gate agent can assign a seat.
4. Passenger gets to gate more than 15 minutes before departure and is denied boarding (presumably because there's no seat to be had, although that's not entirely clear).

Isn't that IDB?

MVANHOU - as others have suggested, I would keep going. The one thing that isn't clear however is how much the IDB compensation would be compared with the $100 voucher they gave you. If the IDB compensation would have been less, it's hard to say they've been "unreasonable" (despite all the runaround etc. in their emails). I guess you can't prove you were at the gate 15 minutes before departure so it's their word against yours.

MVANHOU

Yes, that's a good summary. tt7.

FC said seating was under gate control so they couldn't give me my ticket right there.

The later flight I took was like 6 hours later so the compensation should be $450 since the flight was later. Original price of the ticket was like $700 or somethng. Full fare - refundable.

Your right, I can't prove that I was there, but I think they can. Maybe I'm being dumb, but I would think AA has a time stamp with everything they do. Especially when they book you on another flight.

Does the platinum desk log when people call? I know in the call center world I deal with, every time you call the exact time is logged.

They didn't have any seats available on the flight they took me off. The reason is (in my opinion) is that bad weather was approaching and they had already started to delay and cancel flights. There was probably like 20-30 AA employees ready to start boarding the flight. I'm sure that is why the agent gave me the 30 minute speach.

And I'm okay with AA doing that, it's their employees and if they want to give them the seats they are entitled to do so, I just feel I am entitled to IDB if that's the case.

And as far as letting it just drop as G-five says. Your right I could, and I'm sure the agent will do it to someone else again unless he is told he was wrong and they can't do that to passengers.

This is the first time I have ever complained to AA, and I'm sure as many of you have also, seen some pretty crappy things and poor service. Along with great service! I just felt this time, I got screwed over and rudely at that.

If AA would just call me listen to me and apologize and let me know that the gate agent was told he was wrong. I would shut up and take the voucher. But AA won't even call me to listen. I really don't care about getting $450 dollars.

I'm just tired of people not taking responsibility for their actions.

<jumping of the soapbox now>

thanks!

<corrected reference to plato, sorry!>

pb9997

MVANHOU

Plato90s did not suggest you to drop it - quite the opposite, AA is surely monitoring this thread, I know from personal experience.

Your saying that a simple phone call would get them off the hook, might now yield exactly that. Someone saying it's been a very bad confusion and they're sorry. In my case they tracked me overseas with a phone call to say that. I was in disbelief - whether to be naive and believe it or take my business elsewhere.

I would very professionally go the DOT route. You cannot say you're sorry only after you realize that the way around hasn't worked. What would AA be sorry at this time - for the bad service, or for making the customer look dumb and giving the customer the way around ?

HKG_Flyer1

I strongly second the other recommendations to contact DOT and escalate internally at AA.

The correspondence you have received makes it pretty clear that AA has absolutely no interest in taking either the contract of carriage or the the customer service plan they filed with the DOT (under threat of government regulation) seriously.

Indeed, if I were the reponsible DOT official, I'd be quite offended with AA's evident contempt and indifference.

The situation you described is crystal-clear; AA owes you IDB compensation as outlined by them in two separate legal documents!!

Allowing them to slide by sets a really bad precedent... AA can't be allowed to have it both ways:

drafting and executing what evidently is a bunch of legal B.S. designed to get the federal government to avoid taking adverse regulatory action while simultaneously telling pax to f*** off when they attempt to avail themselves of the legal protections outlined in the same document.

At this point, your complaint has been reviewed by more than one level of managment, so this isn't a isolated case involving a employee with lack of knowledge.

You have AA's three-part answer, which I'll paraphrase:
a) you're an ignorant fool;
b) we're a big, arrogant company and you're just a peon--- we could give a rat's ... about the law; and
c) drop dead.

Not only are they being disingenuous in reciting stuff that is completely irrelevant (the 30 minute rule), they also appear to be playing you for a sap by telling you that they won't give you anything because they evidently lost or destroyed the relevant records.

For added insult, the tone of all the correspondence you have cited is incredibly patronizing, it's almost possible to visualize the writer laughing and sneering as he/she formulated the response.

When writing your letter to the DOT, you should also cc the following individual (including copies of your prior correspondence with AA, the contract of carriage (with relevant section highlighted), and customer service plan (also with relevant section highlighted)):

Gary Kennedy, Esq.
SVP and General Counsel
AMR Corporation
4333 Amon Carter Blvd.
Fort Worth, Texas 76155

Perhaps Mr. Kennedy can educate his colleagues on the importance of honoring legal and contractual obligations.

Also, depending on how you feel about it, you may want to contact Ron Lieber at the Wall Street Journal; his e-mail address is [email protected].

This might be of more than passing interest to him in that it seems like you have pretty well documented evidence that AA has willfully implemented corporate policies which encourage employees to ignore and violate legal contracts (the contract of carriage) and agreements filed with DOT.

Don't drop this.... there are a lot of negative implications associated with AA's course of conduct.

P.S. (after reading flyastrojets remarks below) Definitely be polite and rational (yet firm) in your letter.... in other words don't rant and rave like I have above!

MJonTravel

I won't comment on the validity, or invalidity of the complaint as I haven't taken the time to read all the way back to the beggining yet. But....

The representative's comments regarding the ability to recreate check in and re-booking times due to the travel date being too far in the past is true.

What they can see is essentially a microfiche copy of the "front page" (my words) of your reservation record. They cannot view times of rebooking, check-in, and such as this lies in the "history" section of your reservation and is not viewable after a certain number of days...I believe 48 hours, unless someone intervenes and "saves" the PNR, which I doubt happened.

As for copying the DOT, feel free to do so. About the only difference that copying the DOT will make within AA is that someone in HDQ will actually get a written statement from the employee involved. No, you won't get to see it, but the DOT will as AA will probably package it with their response to DOT. Whether it makes any difference or not....hard to say.

I believe that I remember when I read this thread a few weeks ago, that I thought you might be eligible for IDB, and I'm still leaning that way now that I've reviewed the thread again. Though it is kind of a "splitting hairs" deal. AA's out might be that you failed to comply with their recommended check in time. Not sure if that's enough to get them off the hook or not. I'm a little rusty with this stuff.

Anyway...just a little unsolicited advice.... (and not that I think you wouldn't do this!!!) scribe a rational, reasonable, non-venomous letter describing your version of events to the DOT. State that you've approached AA regarding this and are not satisfied that they have appropriately answered your complaint and lay out the reasons that you think you are right citing the references listed earlier from the Contract of Carriage. In addition to Gary Kennedy, you might cc Ralph Richardi, Sr VP Customer Service as well...and a helluva nice guy I might add.

Let us know what happens....

Pickles

Interesting. I was denied the ability to check in at MCO 38 minutes before departure. I only had a carry-on. The agent said the "system" (is that like "The Man"?) was locked out at 40 minutes before departure. When I started to argue, the ticket agent said that she was putting me on stand-by on the next flight, and giving me a BP so I could get through security so that I could "see if I could get on my scheduled flight".

I get to my gate 3 minutes later, and I'm on board my originally scheduled flight 5 minutes later. What gives?