Dave Noble

You have decided that you do not want to go to Bangkok at this time due to the recent events

You are therefore cancelling the tickets for flight which are scheduled to operate as booked

This is purely a voluntary cancellation on your part for which a $150 redeposit fee applies

You are trying to argue that due to your reasons for choosing to cancel that you shouldn't have to pay the fees - how is that not trying to use the situation in Bangkok to avoid the fees?

barnetda

Yes if you put it like that then you are correct. I took the comment to mean that I was using the situation as an excuse as I had changed my mind due to some other reason .

I was hoping that I would find some sense of understanding at AA , we will wait and see.

I appreciate its not the issue but I haven't regretted my decision to cancel the vacation . My son is now flying to the USA from Sydney to spend time with us here.

supermintyfresh

It's a shame AA isn't allowing waiving the cancellation fees in light of current events when other airlines have already taken initiative/precedence. Although many of these other airlines do charge to even change the date on an award ticket (whereas AA only charges to re-deposit the miles).

I think definitely the best course of action is just to postpone your award flights to the latest date available -- you can just keep on re-ticketing/postponing it indefinitely until the terrorist situation in Thailand dies down.

I think it's worth a shot writing a letter to AA -- let us know how that turns out!

acvitale

OP-

I have watched quietly and frankly it is time to chime in.

You are fishing for little things to try to sway opinion and justify your action/decisions.

Yes a tragedy took place in BKK on the sidewalk outside the hotel you planned on staying in. The hotel is open for business and this is not a coup or revolution.

Similar items happen every day. You made the decision not to go. It was your call. You are acting like a lawyer trying to exploit the system. Pay the $300 as you decided not to go. What CX and QF do is their decision. AA is not changing. If you are serious that you may go in 6 months. Change the booking otherwise get over it. AA is generous compared to DL. Don't look for sympathy when you try to game the system. It looks from my perspective like you are just another gamer trying to take advantage of a change of heart and using the tragedy as an excuse when your family decided they would come to you rather then meet in BKK.

Either way, Good luck but no empathy from me.

barnetda

Acvitale . Thanks for the comment.

I asked this forum for their unbiased views and got excellent replies.

Its clear my strategy to cancel and get the miles redeposited was the wrong one. I should have played the system and changed the flight in the hope that a schedule change would allow me to cancel free of charge.

What i cant understand is your comment about being a gamer and taking advantage of the tragedy.

The facts are my family have cancelled our 2 week vacation as I was unwilling to put them at risk. We were due to meet my son who works in Sydney in Bangkok as we havent seen him for 4 months. Following the cancelation we asked him to fly to us and spend time in the USA together . So the FACT is he booked his flight from Sydney to Dallas AFTER the bombing and solely because we had taken the decision not to go to Bangkok .

So if you think protecting my family is the actions of a gamer than you are judging me without knowing me.

stephem

I'll chime in here, having lived in SE Asia for part of my life and even having been resident in Thailand during a couple of coups and past bombings down the street from this one. I also traveled extensively in Sri Lanka during the long civil war there (being a stones throw from a couple of bombs including the airport bombing) and Bangladesh while there were coups and political unrest there. This is different. If you don't understand the historical internal politics and more current security situation of Thailand, you should read up a bit more before suggesting that AA isn't missing the ball here for not issuing a travel waiver. I've changed plans probably a dozen times due to travel waivers from upheaval and violence, and I'd say this one is a big miss for AA. It's the right set of circumstances to issue a travel waiver, at least in comparison to the previous travel waivers I have availed myself to.

The reality is that this bombing is probably not business as usual for Thailand, it's very different from the internal bombings that were limited to the south of the country or the string of other Bangkok bombings (the most recent of which was in January). This is new uncharted territory for Thailand, it's now turning out to be quite likely it's foreign extremists taking advantage of very fluid borders and an internal security environment that places far more police/security resources on suppressing political opposition and social expression than anything related to international terrorism. That's never been a problem before, one of the joys of Thailand has been the chaos and fluidity, but if outsiders are going to take advantage of that, it will make Thailand a more dangerous place.

I've rarely pulled my family out of a vacation, the last one was diverting away from India the day before we were to leave for Bombay (due to the terrorist attacks that had just happened there). I have plans for Bangkok (including staying at the GH) in December and based on our own assessment and familiarity with Thailand, we're likely to pull out. Right now, one of the carriers (a regional national carrier) we are on has a waiver extending into the end of October and my conversations with them indicate that they may well extend that. They freely admit the situation in Thailand is unclear and suggested we revisit the waiver issue in a month with them.

So I don't think OP is out of line at all to ask. My own sense is that this is another example of an American company that doesn't have operations in this particular country just having it's head up its you know what.

PS- Travel insurance is a non sequitur, first and foremost, carriers should issue travel waivers where appropriate.

JDiver

Thank you all for sharing your points of view. Further discussion of the geopolitical kind would make this more suitable for OMNI/PR, and further over personalization is contrary to the Rules - and we're not going to go farther down either path.

Pretty much everything that can be said has been said. The OP made a decision based on his judgment (not really asking for our opinions but advice about alternatives and advocacy toward getting redeposit fees waived); that has been offered. Now it is up to him and AA to resolve the issue.

/Moderator

tng11

Is AA's policy not to only charge the reinstatement fee of $150 once + $25 per ticket if cancelled at the same time and the reservations came out of the same account?

The wording of the policy is:

I just got the credit card receipt for the reinstatement fees and I was charged $300!

Called in, talked to a supervisor and they said the correct charge is $300 - because they were separate reservations, and they said the policy only applies to where there is more than one passenger on the same booking.

I've cancelled awards in the past, separate reservations and was only charged the $150 plus $25 for each award!

SeeBuyFly

Yes, your understanding is the same as mine and I have done it before as well. Note that the $25 discounted cost does not apply to changes, only cancellations.

tng11

Just wrote in to CR - as I've called back twice and no one in Reservations seems to understand what I am complaining about.

The supervisor who I got through to in AAdvantage Customer Service said quite firmly that the $25 additional fee only applies where there are additional passengers - the fact that it was a separate PNR would attract another $150 fee! That's a nasty change in policy if true, and clearly is not suggested by the wording of their own terms and conditions.

They were both straight cancellations and redeposits. I guess the proof that they happened at the same time was when they billed me $150x2? Both reservations clearly came out of the same account too!

EDIT: Just got an e-mail response from CR. They told me just to call in again.

Exec_Plat

put together documenttation of their written policy and documentation of the booking details. 'print' pdfs of emails, webpages, etc. Add a cover letter that explains why you believe you were overcharged- if AA isnt specific in their polcy about 'separate pnrs' triggering this added fee, they cannot retroactively apply this distinction (this is your assertion, based on the fact that AA drafted this policy- should they have wanted it to apply in this way they should have said so)

Send it all off to your credit card company and say 'they overcharged me by $125.

tng11

I'll give them a few more chances over the phone before I do a chargeback with the CC company. I have award reservations to fly in December and February and wouldn't want them to "mysteriously disappear". Though I'm not happy about having wasted 60 minutes of my life dealing with this so far.

JonNYC

My impression is as follows; the correct policy is, if the miles for multiple pax came out of the same account, it is $150 first ticket, $25 ea addl if miles are all being reinstated at the same time. Makes no difference whether in separate or same PNR. They have to adjust the numbers manually in the PNR.

Maybe the agent mentioned was either new and unfamiliar with the policy or just confused. But if it comes up on the next call, rather than argue it might be worth asking for a supervisor again. They do have a lot of new-to-function AAdvantage agents on the phones now.

tng11

Tried a few times in the phone - agents insist it is by PNR and not by the number of tickets.

Looks like this is going to the credit card company.

Dave Noble

Just to check
Was this for 2 passengers undertaking the same journey , albeit on different reservations ?