Daniel

[Originally I was inquiring about avoiding an expedite fee by purchasing award tickets for a future date with identical routing, then calling AA to change the date. This is clearly allowed per AA award change policies. I ended up following this precise process, calling for the date change, receiving an e-mail confirmation/invoice for $5.00, and subsequently discovered that AA charged the $50 expedite fee as a separate transaction to my credit card without my permission or even notification. They just did it. So my original inquiry about avoidance of the expedite fee now relates to AA's behavior in charging my credit card without permission.

If they did not want me to make a date change on my ticket, they should have indicated such in their policy.

If making a change would result in a charge, they should always obtain authorization and notify me.

They did neither, they cheerfully accepted my request by phone, assigned seats, and wished me a happy afternoon.

Five minutes later they had charge me another fifty bucks.

I don't think this is much short of theft.

ricktoronto

What if the date you picked just to get it is OK and the date you want to switch to and avoid the $50 is not available? Then you are stuck with a ticket and the wrong date.

Daniel

OK, now I'm angry, though perhaps some of you would disagree.

This expedite fee is arguably a joke - I can't quite conceive of how it is costing AA any more to process my electronic award reservation 13 days in advance vs 18 days in advance.

The rules clearly allow me to
(1) create an award ticket with no expedite fee that is 21 days in advance
(2) call AAdvantage reservations and change the dates at NO CHARGE if the city pairs remain the same.

So I did exactly that. Paid $5.00 fee. Called. They cheerfully changed the dates, I got the dates I wanted. No resistance, no request for an expedite fee. Issue done.

I review the reservation after I get off the phone.

AA charged me a $50 expedite fee (a) without my authorization or approval (b) not in accordance with their own policies.

I even have a screen print of the reservation showing no expedite fee at 5:08pm and then reviewed it at 5:09pm and the $50 fee appeared.

Has anyone ever experienced this sort of situation? I can't imagine they have a legal leg to stand on!!!

justageek

I suspect this is one of the many loopholes they read about here and then closed.

The way they closed it seems inexcusable, though.

Daniel

Unprofessional at minimum, likely illegal, surely contestable. If they want their policies to reflect that they will charge a retroactive $50 expedite fee for a ticket that doesn't require an expedite fee and only involves a date change, then (a) their policy must clearly indicate this (b) they have an obligation to inform me and obtain my authorization and consent to charge my credit card another $50 (they simply made the charge - I noticed an attempt to reach me on my mobile phone but no message).

From AA.com

Changing Award Tickets
A $100 USD change fee (subject to change without notice) will apply for any confirmed change to a MileSAAver Award ticket.

* Exception: MileSAAver Award tickets for which the only confirmed change is to the date and/or time will not incur the change fee.

http://www.aa.com/content/AAdvantage...dDetails.jhtml

Maybe they intend to have a clause 'In the event that your non-expedited award has a confirmed change such that an incremental revenue opportunity in reclassifying the ticket as expedited shall occur, we will, at our discretion, without your authorization or approval, charge you the expedite fee, in addition to a $100 change fee, $5 phone agent fee, and $50 additional nuisance fee.'

Geez...its hard to love airlines these days, really....

pb9997

Daniel, in order for it to work you should have waited until reservation showed ticketed instead of purchased. That's why you were hit with the $50 fee.

Someone made the changes while the ticketed was being processed.

It's wrong for AA to charge something not initially presented to the customer - but then, per the rules (I'm completely against) you should pay the $50 when less than 21 days bla-bla-bla.

Next time, make the reservation, purchase the ticket, let the ticket be issued to only then make whatever change - not even the $5 fee should hit you.

sholmes149

I had no problems in avoiding the $50 by just changing the dates. The $5 fee was not even imposed.

Another thought... some credit cards allow you to create a one-time credit card number with a limit. I generally use the one-time credit number procedure to avoid surprises like this one.

S

brp

Boy did I get screwed by one of those once. These usually also limit the charge to one merchant. A while back on the Mileage Run forum, a super mistake was unearthed by kef0913 (the genius). $61 JFK to KEF! I went to book it using one of these numbers. Well, it was first charged by Cheaptickets.for their fees, then sent to Iceland Air for theirs, at which point it was rejected as a second merchant .

Alywa be aware of these when using such numbers with third party airfare sites, for example.

Cheers,

wahooflyer

Yes. Be sure to wait until your reservation is ticketed before you call and do the date change. I've done this several times and it's taken anywhere from 2 to 4 hours for the initial award booking to be ticketed. After I see the word "Ticketed" on AA.com, I call and change the dates to the ones I really want, for no fee.

I don't think AA has changed the rules, but unfortunately you're stuck with the nuisance fee because the award wasn't actually ticketed before you made the date change. That's no excuse for the AAgent not informing you that the fee would be charged, however.

JDiver

Executive summary: You game the system with insufficient knowledge. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Xin loi.

swag

Why was there a $5 fee? The call to change the ticket should be free.

Yeti88

I assume Daniel called to book the award, paid the $5 fee for booking over the phone, then called again to have the dates changed. Isn't that what he said?

tekelberry

Probably because the reservation hadn't been ticketed yet, meaning it hadn't been charged either. Any changes made over the phone prior to ticketing result in the $5 fee.

Daniel

Actually, I believe I will win this one, in fact I'll bet on it.

Here is my rationale:

1. I booked the original ticket online, and consented to the use of my stored American Express card for a $5.00 charge for the security fee.
2. American Airlines charged that card $5.00 on 3/16 from Dallas Fort Worth.
3. AA sent me an e-mail with an e-ticket confirmation showing the revised dates that I called in to request, and indicating the grand total of $5.00 charge. The e-mail indicated that it was a receipt showing the $5.00 charge, no $50.00 charge.
4. I also have a printout of the reservation online in addition to the receipt that shows $5.00 as the only charge - then 2 minutes later there is magically an additional $50 charge showing online.
5. AA charged me $50.00 on a SEPARATE transaction from Tulsa, OK (presumably the call center) which they never disclosed or obtained my approval for.
6. AA policies do not prohibit the process I executed, nor are they illegal.

I've never been aware of a situation where any merchant, airline or otherwise, is permitted to charge for services to a credit card when such charge has not been authorized by the owner of the credit card.

I absolutely intend to pursue refund of the $50.00 by AA, they simply don't have any justification for charging it, nor do they have any authorization to do so. It was clearly a separate transaction and conflicts with the itinerary / receipt that AA e-mailed to me.

I was joking about the $5.00 fee because it seemed funny to me that I could book a ticket online, call award reservations and have them change the date and that does not cost $5.00, but following their logic of retroactive penalties I'm surprised they didn't cancel the entire reservation and assess me a $5.00 phone booking fee.

Does anyone really feel that AA behaved in an ethical fashion by charging my credit card without my authorization and in contradiction with their receipt?

pb9997

JDiver's assessment is on spot.

In fact AAdvantage T&C clearly inform there are service fees for awards redeemed in 7-21 days period. You called AA to specifically change your flights to that time frame that you knew there were fees to be paid. Per the rules AA charged you accordingly, no more, no less. The same way when one changes a ticketed reservation that incurs fees for... changing dates.

Daniel, you did game the system. You lost. Move on. Next time you'll know better. That's my opinion.