Often1

They almost certainly will either revoke ORC or substantially revise it. On the flip side, the refund is likely to be close to nothing on that segment as a percentage of the total distance.

rill2503456

Dunno if there's a newer thread for this but just thought I'd share my experience.

I was on a paid F ticket from DTW-ORD (I class, ticketed by Iberia on Iberia ticket stock) and after boarding had already started but before anybody got on the plane, the crew blocked seat 1A for use as a flight attendant jumpseat since theirs was broken. Apparently it was broken on the incoming flight, but they didn't tell the gate til after boarding started.
I got involuntarily downgraded and was given a $300 trip credit. The amount seems quite fair to me for such a short flight. I'm an explat and I was a bit surprised that they didn't find somebody else to downgrade but I guess that's because it was done by the crew and not at the gate.

IAHtraveler

TLDR: Any compensation due after an ExPlat upgrade, but then downgraded day-of on a domestic tix (no reason given)?

Long Story: I was on a domestic, ~4 hour flight recently and bought an economy ticket since it looked likely for an upgrade. A few days prior to to the flight, I got the usual upgrade email and selected a window seat. I checked-in the day before and had the same seat assigned. When I got to the airport, I got the "see an agent for a seat" boarding pass. Plane was the same type as the original booking, so it's not a swap to a plane with less F seats that caused the issue. Also, since it's a window, I assume it's not an Air Marshall issue. I asked at the counter and gate, but didn't get any real answer other than "Sorry, flight is full. Please wait until the end and we'll get you a seat." I ended up with an aisle in economy, so it wasn't the worst seat, but still very annoying to not even have an answer/apology/etc. I've heard nothing from AA since then (not surprised) but not sure if there's something specific I should ask for? I know it was a 'complimentary' upgrade, but that's one of the reasons I put a good portion of my flights toward AA, so it's far from 'complimentary'.

GrumpyYoungMan

Last time that happened to me I got a $300 voucher, which surprised me since it was an upgrade. That was probably 3-4 years ago.

NickP 1K

Had a downgrade from Paid 3 class BOS-LAX to a non-transcon A321 - got the $300 standard. Funny thing was I almost did LAX-BOS and then BOS-DFW-SNA, with latter two in standard 2 class first and it was $700 cheaper. Did this trip mainly to hit my $2K spend for status renew

Alan6557

My wife and I were downgraded when our flight in early December was canceled while we were checking our baggage at the airport. One ticket was paid first class, the other an award ticket, 45,000 miles, not saver. Both one=way tickets. At the airport we were only offered replacement flights in economy, which we accepted. The agent said that we would receive a refund. The refund for the paid ticket was $247. I'd estimate that the difference between a paid first class ticket vs. economy on the date of purchase was approximately $500. I don't have a screenshot from that time. A refund for the award ticket was denied. Any thoughts on how to obtain a fair refund? We fly frequently. Even a voucher for complimentary upgrades would work for us.

bgasser

You can email AA and maybe customer service will credit your AAdvantage account 5000 or 10000 miles as a goodwill gesture. If you are hoping for cash, when you accepted the change, you lost the money.

lockman21

Hi all - not sure if this qualifies but curious if anyone has had this experience and if it's even worth bringing up to AA.

For reference, I'm EP and was on a paid economy (H) ticket on a domestic 787. After boarding, I got the push notification that my seat was upgraded from 7C to 2L. A gate agent then came on board to give me my new seat assignment, and after getting up and grabbing my bags, I walked up to 2L and there was already someone there. After some confusion on board, the gate agent came back and said they made a mistake and said I had to go back to my original seat assignment. I walk back to 7C and now someone is sitting in my previous seat, turns out it was a FA standby that was supposed to be sitting jumpseat that the working FA gave my PE seat to after I got upgraded. So we had to shuffle a bit after that and end of the day I remained in my originally assigned 7C.

I don't know if anyone has seen that before - it's a bit different from the standard downgrade we're talking about here but just struck me as very strange and unprofessional.

Always Flyin

Happened to me as well a few weeks ago, although there was no FA in my seat when I did the walk of shame back to economy.

ijgordon

That is absolutely not true. They are owed the fare difference, it's even stated so in the conditions of carriage. But without a screen shot from the time of booking (which I always make when booking a premium cabin), it can be difficult to dispute AA's calculation of the fare difference. One alternative is to buy coach initially, then up-fare to the desired class of service with an additional collection. Then the fare difference is crystal clear.

Alan6557

I followed up with AA. Regarding the paid first class ticket that was downgraded, the partial refund was approximately 50% of the difference between the first class and economy fare. In addition, I got a 5,000 mile customer service bonus. For the first class award ticket that was downgraded, I got a refund of 25,000 miles. The difference between the first class and economy award ticket was 27,500 miles. Thank you for the suggestion. From now on, I'll buy coach initially, then up-fare as you suggested.

theboss7593

Not a downgrade per-say but I was Upgraded on a HELD ticket that was suppose to be held until 2 hours prior to departure. Log in 10 hours prior to departure to find the booking code to call in to purchase the HELD reservation. The reservation is gone an no longer held, my upgrade is gone. Book new ticket in Y. I'm number 1 on the list with 1 seat left. I'm told at the gate the seat will be mind but they won't process it until the boarding commences (the flight was delayed 90 min)

They don't give me the seat because "it's soaking wet and we are putting the seat out of service" Okay I Don't want to sit in wet seat of course. So back to Econ + I go, TV's not working the entire flight and more importantly the outlets aren't working the entire flight. Do I have any stake at a claim, had I known that I was not getting the upgrade, I would've taken a different flight with upgrade space available that was suppose to have scheduled departure 15 minutes earlier than my flight and in the end went off 105 minutes before my flight did. Also had the original reservation not fallen off before it was suppose to I would've automatically been sitting in J.

lowfareair

Flew CLE-PHL this week and received my elite upgrade. The morning of departure, got a call that the plane was downgraded (CR9 to CR7) and they were offering $150 in trip credit or 5k bonus miles to accept the downgrade. I accepted the voucher and the agent then said it's a long shot but I'd be put back on the upgrade list and would get the voucher either way. Apparently someone missed checkin or changed their flight as I was re-upgraded a few minutes before boarding commenced. Not a bad way to make $150, but any DPs on whether that type of comp on a call is negotiable? Had to get off the phone quickly for a meeting so wasn't going to negotiate, but wondering if the agents have leeway to up the bid to get me downgraded.