I just spent 45 minutes on the phone with an AA agent trying to get what should be a very simple schedule change completed.

I have an itin later this year - MCI-MIA-CLT-BCN. The first two segments were scheduled for AA metal, the CLT-BCN segment for US metal. It is a simple standalone one-way coach award.

However, the CLT-BCN flight was recently changed to be two hours earlier, creating a misconnect with the MIA-CLT flight.

To make matters worse, the records in both AA.com and USAirways.com make no sense now: I can't view anything in AA.com and what I see in USAirways.com is MCI-MIA-CLT as an "outbound" and MIA-CLT-BCN as an "inbound", with my MIA-CLT flight incorrectly showing 30 minutes in duration. (Yes, MIA-CLT is inexplicably duplicated. )

Since the ticket was issued by AA using AA miles in December, I called AA.

The first 10 minutes of the conversation were explaining that it's a schedule change and therefore I didn't need the agent to go off looking for award availability. I could tell the agent was reading some instructional files and eventually agreed that in my case, yes, I was entitled to a change and did not need to find award seats. I was mildly annoyed because I started the conversation clearing talking about a schedule change and a misconnect, not my desire to voluntarily change an award.

The middle 15 minutes was a long hold with her apparently talking to another department who came back and said that they could only change AA flights since it was an AA schedule change. They couldn't "open up" US flights. I explained that the BCN flight was a US flight, and the agent said "Oh, they were fixated on the MCI-MIA flight...that one also had a schedule change." (It did, of a few minutes, but that was immaterial to me.)

Finally, she agreed that I should be placed on a nonstop MCI-CLT flight on US that would leave a 2:45 connection in CLT. She tried finding someone who could do that (another 10 minutes), but finally came back and said "I have to put it in a queue for US, and they'll ticket it next week." The rest of the time was her completing some form to send the request to a queue in US-land.

I'm not too worried (yet): the MCI-CLT flight won't fill up in 4-5 days, and it has 50+ seats available. But shouldn't this be a *little* easier? Would it have been any benefit to phone a US number first? I thought AA miles -> AA ticket -> AA Gold telephone support would work.

The new normal I'm afraid with the "new-American".

Right now, it's like any issue that goes wrong with an itinerary involving AA and any other partner. It won't help for me to say it'll hopefully change within a very few months, but right now it can get very sticky.

Ugh.

I logged in today, and found that my itin in AA.com now reads as MCI-DFW-CLT, MCI-DFW-CLT-BCN. Five segments, with two each of MCI-DFW and DFW-CLT, and with the DFW-CLT segment that actually appears ticketed with seats assignments misconnecting by 22 minutes.

The itin has been deleted completely from USAirways.com. Now I'm a *bit* concerned about my original CLT-BCN flight...I assume it'll eventually get straightened out, but we had good seats that might be gone by the time they do.

Another call to AA today. Another sympathetic agent who said everything should get fixed by the "liaison"...I guess that's someone who handles itins on AA ticket stock using US metal (?). Now I'm told it could be another 48 hours on top of the 72+ hours it's already been.

All for a very simple schedule conflict with a rather obvious and available flight that will correct it.

Just now, I received a newly ticketed itin: MCI-DFW-CLT-BCN.

Another phone call...this time, AA says they can do nothing. They say that when there is a schedule change, they first rebook onto flights that have award availability, and only if there are no flights on any routing at all with award availability will they consider escalating to put me on other flights.

The layovers are very long...I'm not worried about a misconnect now...it just makes for a very long day when I know there will be a half-empty midday Tuesday flight nonstop to CLT.

Plus, the agent kept using "us" and "them" language in reference to AA and US metal, which is pretty damned annoying to hear as an end customer. To me, it's one airline. The fact that internally they may have bad systems or otherwise not get along shouldn't be my problem.

They also only consider your origin and destination. They do nothing to keep your connecting cities intact. That's a rule with all airlines.

Seems silly, OP. Maybe try the Twitter team??

I understand that. I have no particular preference or requirement to keep any of the connecting cities...I was simply seeking the simplest itinerary.

In the past on both AA and US (and UA, for that matter), when I've had a portion of an award itin either cancel or undergo a significant schedule change, I've been able to rebook to different flights independent of whether those new flights had award availability. I've had it happen multiple times over the years (anyone who books awards 330 days out potentially has it happen often), and it has always been a simple phone call.

If *they* change break the itinerary, then award availability no longer mattered. They'd fix it with an optimal routing.
If *I* called wanting to change dates, routes, cities, etc., then obviously award availability mattered.

I've never considered that: would it be a private message to them on Twitter? (I have a Twitter account but don't really tweet...)

Heck no--public so that you get some visibility-but no specific info. They will then take it private.

Something like "need help with US/AA award ticket. Sch chg causing misconnects. Call ctr not able to help"

OK, tried Twitter. Failed. They said "work with reservations". Tried to have a conversation...thought they might say "send us details", but they did not.

So before I DM them anyway, let me step back and ask this: am I off-base to begin with? What are a passenger's rights (or airline's obligations) when a future schedule change creates a misconnect? (Is there a set of rules somewhere on the AA site?)

Throughout my years of travel, on any airline, I've picked up the phone and resolved it in one call - the agent rebooks me only the best possible available routing. My original fare bucket is almost never available on the new flight (whether an award or some cheap coach ticket), but that has never mattered. In some cases, the schedule change gives me a much better routing than what I had originally. In others, it's worse. But either way, I've never been told I can't have the most logical routing - assuming it's fully available in my cabin of service.

But is there any rule that says the airline must do this? Or are they only obligated to reroute on the same day or something? I feel like one of two things is going on here: (a) the liaison is claiming that because my original itin had 2 connections, so must my new one or (b) because my original itin had AA-operated flights, so must my new one.

I was semi-comfortable with my original 2-connection itin, but much less comfortable with this one. 2 hours and 25 minutes less comfortable, to be exact.

I am having a similar issue with AA and US and add in a travel agent and the fact that it is ticketed by BA and subtract the award ticket part.

I also had similar weirdness with duplicate flights booked and different itineraries showing up on different airlines websites. I got the same answer from US Air that since my original itinerary had 2 stops they could only change it to an itinerary with 2 stops. I have had both nice agents who seemed to try but weren't able to help and absolutely awful ones that were rude, condescending and told me things that were obviously wrong.

I got them to put me on flights that have legal connection times (though not what I was hoping for), but in changing the flights I now have US Air flight numbers for which which US Air says I am not ticketed. The flights are operated by AA who does say that I am ticketed. Hard to know who to trust.

One US agent told me there were "big" schedule changes coming this weekend, so maybe wait a couple of days to see what happens?

No answers, just commiseration, and I wish you good luck and helpful agents!

I just gave up. Twitter was useless: they kept responding with a canned "talk to reservations" response. My problem is that I don't tweet and don't have many followers...I only use Twitter to follow news sources and a few companies. So while the official AA handle was having lovely "I hope you enjoy your trip" conversations with people with hundreds of followers, they won't pay much attention to me.

I eventually found the Rule 240/80 language deep within AA's site. I read both the AA schedule change and "other airline" schedule change rules (since AA's agents seem to enjoy treating US like another airline). In both cases, the language suggests I should get the rebooking as long as the new flight has B availability or less. (It probably has 100 seats in B or less. ) However, the rules don't clearly compel them to give me the most direct flight...AA can at this point say "we gave you a legal reroute already."

I'm just frustrated because the *old* AA wouldn't have done this. Their agents would have made the change...in fact, they tried to here, twice, and were rejected by the US liaison. I guess I can only hope that post-merger, once we're all back in one system and the "liaison" to the other system is gone, this particular issue won't happen again.