Sugar Apple

Newbie here. I purchased 2 round trip tickets back in March for a trip to Aruba in May. I paid $1250. Two days ago, I get a kayak price alert and it catches my eye because it is showing that there is a fare out there round trip for $305.
I go online and see that this fare is being offered by American but it's the SAME flight I am on operated by Usairways. I call USairways and they tell me that the fare is still the price I paid (a bit higher now) on their website so unfortunately there is nothing I could do. I felt badly but chalked it up. Late last night I decided to call American and the representative felt my pain. She made a fake reservation just to see if it would even process and it did however the two departments that have the authority to make this right, said no because AA and Usairways are operating as two separate airlines. I got a bit irate and said I would be inclined to agree that the merger isn't fully complete but when I call Usairways now, I only here about booking travel on AA and promotions for AA. It's the same flight for Pete's sake!!! If it was a different flight, I could understand their reluctance to help.

I finally got transferred to a higher department, again she sympathized and told me what to do. She wanted to see if I could actually book the flight all the way through to payment. I booked the flight on AA, received my confirmation. She cancelled the flight on Usairways because she said the system would automatically cancel one of them anyway. (By the way is this an FAA thing that would see me on the same flight twice or is this the same system that is not yet merged?)

She then told me to send an email to the complaints department and request a call rather than document the incident. She advised that they are required to call me back. I did all of this around 2AM this morning.

So my question now is, do I get a chance at getting my $1250 returned to me? Is there anything additional I should do? Is this normal?

JDiver

Was your fate unrestricted or restricted? Was thete a change fee? How much was it? There's too much we don't know here to be able to offer more than uneducated opinion, IMO. Not to mention AA and US are still operating as separate airlines in many ways.

jridge

I don't see what the US/AA merger has to do with this. You booked the ticket a month ago and since then the fare has decreased... nothing newsworthy there; prices fluctuate.

Unless you purchased a refundable ticket, I'd guess you'll be able to cancel the more expensive ticket and apply the value (minus cancellation fee) to travel within 12 months of the ticketing date.

medichill

I feel your pain, but it's like buying any other product and then seeing it for less later. Unless you have protection, like an existing return policy or another type of price protection, you are out of luck.

Unless you have a refundable fare or elite status with the airline that would allow you to cancel with a fee, I think you'll have to chalk it up to the fact that the timing sucks.

Sugar Apple

Thanks folks. I really just wanted insight. As I stated I'm new, restricted/unrestricted means nothing to me. I have never seen prices fluctuate with this degree of a change so it was a big deal to me. I do have elite status with the airline so I will wait and see what happens with customer service). I guess from now on, I will buy all refundable fares.

jridge

You could do, and that's largely up to your risk tolerance. But that might be going too far... You could better off taking the occasional cancellation fee and getting 'store credit' (which you'd stand a reasonable chance of using, given that you're an elite) rather than paying really high prices for refundable tickets.

Sugar Apple

Thank you. Was looking for direction and that sounds like a good first step. I will follow-up and advise what the outcome is. I am just hoping for some form of a credit.

RogerD408

There are so many variables in fare pricings heaven only knows what's happening here. It may be the AA system was still showing a discounted fare in it's inventory that US no longer had available. There is not one system out there feeding all the sites real-time. AA may have been told there are x economy fares available and will sell them until depleted or US sends an update to AA.

Having more details would help someone track it down a bit more. Flight numbers, dates, fare codes, systems used, etc. This is one of those corner cases that should be resolved once the reservation systems are merged. Until then you will find hiccups like this.

Good luck getting this resolved.

hm500

I recently purchased a round trip ticket from LGA-MIA, which was significantly cheaper if purchased from US Airways, even though it was operated by American Airlines.

So, I booked it on US, and then I had to call AA to select a better seat without paying more money.

I couldn't do the upgrade request ahead of time, so I only got put on the upgrade list when I checked in at the airport.

I'm not sure if anything has changed with the upgrades, since this flight was before they merged the frequent flyer accounts. They may have sorted this out already.

Sugar Apple

Travel dates: May 30th-June 6th.
I booked on usairways.com. Flight 870 on 5/30 and Flight 871 on 6/6. I have no idea where to even find the fare code but on the usairways confirmation in () next to the flight are these numbers (NNW5C7O1) On AA's reservation the fare code is N.

Let me know what you find out. At this point I am just curious as to why this is so much cheaper on AA. I'm hopeful I will get the credit to use in the future but I just can't wrap my head this. I try to rationalize it like if it were clothing but it still isn't making sense.

On AA-same dates, same flight numbers.

PbodyPhoto

When a company is about to release a new product it can have two effects on the left over stock. That stock will either sell more expensive if there is still high demand for only a small amount of stock or it will be marked down to clear stock.

Airline seats are no different. If there is 5 seats left they will go up in price but if there is only 5 seats sold and the rest of the flight is empty then the airline would be stupid to close the doors on an empty flight without squeezing some more money out.

9 times out of 10 your ticket price will go up significantly as the flight date approaches. Unless you are going to call the airline to pay the new higher fare I fail to see why you should get a refund in the rare instances that the fare goes down.

AA-Flyer-SAN

You can always cancel the ticket and eat the change fee ($150-$300). If you subtract 600 from the 1250 then it's 300+ bucks cheaper so you still are saving money.

Sugar Apple

I'm truly amazed at the customer service. AA customer relations just called me back. I wasn't expecting a call back until 3-5 business days. Spoke with a gentleman who let me explain and then we talked a bit about the merger and some of the things that were mentioned here. He understood my frustration and informed me that I will receive a refund for the higher priced fare. I only fly this one airline so it really does feel good to know they cared. Thanks for your feedback folks!!!

RogerD408

Congrats on finding someone that cares. That can be a real trick these days. Thanks for closing the loop and letting us know the outcome.

medichill

That is great news. I recently consolidated all my flying on AA/US so very glad to hear this!