nyflyerboy

New here, excuse if wrong forum:

AA Gold Member- Recently ticketed a non refundable ticket LGA-ORD, and fare went down on my latest search to buy another ticket for a companion on the same flight.
I tried to get a "credit" for the difference on my original flight, (could have sworn I received credits before for similar instances in past). AA refused to offer me the difference without me first paying a $100 change fee (thereby offsetting the difference!). Is this new policy for exact flights & fare class that have a drop in fare?

Thanks!

Flailey

Correct me if I'm wrong but the AA.com lowest fare guarantee should apply here if it's same exact flights and same exact fare code letter.

Assuming you didn't do something bad like buy it on another travel site that is...

Tambreet

The poster didn't say how long it's been since purchase, but the Lowest Fare Guarantee is only good on the same day if memory servers. After 24 hours I think you are stuck with the change fee unless the ticket is refundable.

acf573

AA used to allow refaring for free, but they changed that policy (last year sometime?). Now you have to pay the change fee except on international tickets (where refaring is still free).

JAppelbee

Isnt the AA.com Guarantee only valid within 24 hrs of purchase though. ??

I think a number of threads have discussed the price difference thing before, and I dont believe you are entitled to a refund if it goes down. It may be different for Int'l flights, not sure Thems the breaks, thats why they have sales, and the prices change from week to week.

nyflyerboy

It's got to be SAME DAY to find a lower fare in order to get a credit - otherwise, change fee applies.

Wow there's alot of fine print involved here..........

IceTrojan

Low-fare guarantee is only good if you find a lower fare within 24 hours (confirmed that with Web Services vs. "same" calendar day).

To OP... sorry, the market dictates the price, and you ended up paying a premium by buying earlier... what you get is availability. The longer you wait, the more risk, and price may change up OR down.

To answer your question... yes, it's policy to pay the change fee (dependent on your fare). So if the price difference is more than the change fee (whether it's $30 or $100) you get the difference.

FWAAA

Ok, you're wrong.

The lowest fare guarantee applies if you find a cheaper, identical fare on another travel website. It has nothing to do with the fare increasing between the time the first ticket is purchased and the time the traveler decides to buy a second ticket for a companion.

Flailey

If he had bought one ticket and then went to buy another and found a lower fare same day it would indeed apply. The OP isn't clear... but yes I should have mentioned the same day rule in order to give better info, since reading it now it's definitely implied that one was purchased long before the other.

925

Which definition of "international" does AA use here? Is Caribbean deemed international for free re-faring?

lili

Is it really still free on international? Including deep discount tix? Good to know, if it is.

FWAAA

No, you're still wrong:

http://www.aa.com/content/urls/guarantee.jhtml

AA's aa.com lowest fare guarantee requires that you find a lower fare on some other website, so I respectfully disagree with you.

So many answers, so little advice

Flailey

If he'd bought it on AA this morning, say and now there was a lower published fare this afternoon then he would go find it on any website that shows fares and prove it and get his refund. There's nothing incorrect at all about that, if it was indeed same day.

In retrospect I was wrong, in the sense that yeah when I read his post again he says "recently" which would probably not be today or you'd say "this morning". So my sincere apologies, should have mentioned that, sort of assumed he was booking one after the other for a trip and had one person see a much lower fare than the other, which happens all the time -- hey you go see if you can get this flight and I will too, so we'll fly together.

I hope you can find a way to forgive me.

West Coast Ace

You beat me to it - AA is running this guarantee to drive traffic to AA.com. I'm sure AA would love to see Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline, et. al., go the way of the dinosaur.

As another poster mentioned, prices on the AA.com site are very fluid - when you hit the Confirm button to buy there, you're basically saying you accept the price... unless you can convince them you're 8 yr son or Labrador Retriever got on your PC and did it. :-)

Flailey

All the more ironic as AA was a major investor in, and one of the founders of Orbitz. Though I don't believe they have any stake in it now.