change fee confusion
 

A few months back, I took advantage of that fire sale on TATL J fares - got a DCA-MIA-MAD-FCO; TRN-LGW; LHR-MIA-DCA for a *very* good price.

Now, with a few changes (both AAdvantage and personal), I'm not sure I'll want to use that ticket, and am considering cancelling and using the money for something completely different.

So this morning, I called the EXP line because I couldn't find anyplace where the change fee is listed.

AAgent #1 quickly checked something and quoted me a $300 change fee.

That sounded suspiciously low for tatl deep discount J, so I did HUCA. AAgent #2 fumbled with some things, and then put me on hold to check with the rate desk. This time, the definitive answer was $500.

I now needed a tie-breaker, so I did some more HUCA. AAgent #3 fumbled with some things, put me on hold, and came back with the definitive answer of $300. I explained the story so far, and he said it was weird that the rate desk quoted a higher figure, as the answer was simple based on my fare basis code.

HUCA. AAgent #4 put me on hold and checked with the rate desk. The easy answer is $500.

At this point, I decided I needed to do something more productive with my morning; as I hemmed and hawed between checking some AA Vacations prices and cleaning the front hallway, I got a call from my favorite contact, "American Airlines": It was AAgent #3 calling back; he'd been curious about the divergent answers I was getting, and did some digging. He says there's one fare basis with $500 for a change fee and another fare basis code with $300, and the only difference is the *last* letter in the code. He said the correct change fee for my fare basis in, in fact, $500; but since I was misquoted twice, he'd put a note in my record granting me a one-time change for $300. The AAgent apologized for the trouble and gave me his full name to use in the event somebody gives me a hard time later.

So I tested this by calling AAgent #5, who took a look and quoted me $500, but she volunteered that a PNR note grants a one-time exception of $300 due to the earlier mis-quote.

I haven't made a final decision yet on whether to cancel or fly (or hold the reservation in the hope that I'll get a schedule change and full refund), but this was a fun little exercise.

I'm not the first one to say it, but: HUCA pays. Literally.

Change fees for my international flights (SCL/EZE-USA) have been $300 in both Y and J for a while now.

However, checking https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-ser...oter#ticketing for the first time in a very long time, I see that they now say:

Voluntary change to ticket before day of travel
$200 - domestic travel
Up to $750 - international travel (bolding mine, obvs)

For all classes.

So, we here won't know if they were supposed to charge you $300 or $500 or something more, since there's no published definition. I suppose in this case AA would say that you should be happy they didn't charge you $750! :/

I believe we've also seen some cases of international AA tickets being completely non-changeable.

Thanks, discoverCSG, for posting this. I've got some similar flights I am mulling over changing, but could not find the change fee information anywhere (all I found was the page zpaul noted about "up to $750".) But this is helpful for thinking about whether the change is worth it.

I wish AA was a little more transparent on these matters!

Did you read the detailed fare rules when you were purchasing the fare? The change fees, etc. are always detailed there.

Plenty of domestic tickets are also effectively non-changeable due to the fact that the ticket is worth less than the change fee.

I probably skimmed that when I booked, but I don't remember what it said nor did I save it. I've logged onto AA.com, looked at the booking confirmation, and looked at the e-ticket confirmation. All it says is "Refund/Changes Fees Apply C-47-48." I searched for that term but came up empty.

PS, I'm just contemplating making a switch so haven't called or investigated further. If I can't change or if the change fee is higher than I'm willing to pay, I can stick with what I booked. I didn't realize that information wasn't more readily available, since otherwise AA seems pretty clear about fees.

How do you view them after you have purchased? They seem to hide these pretty well.

No can do. Because keeping the customer informed is not a part of "the new AA". :td:

I always read the detailed fare rules before buying, and often copy the text into a file for future reference. At least, I'll add cancel and change fees, etc. to my TripIt entry for the itinerary.

I do believe others have reported one can see the change costs using the Refund site.

I can see the full fare basis code there, but no link to actual fare rules.

Fortunately, I can confidently say that I have never seen a ticket with a change fee of more than $300-ish.

You have a conjunctive ticket and the last two digits of the tickets are 47 and 48. You can effectively disregard that part of the endorsements.