Using Paypal for AA tickets?
 

Sorry if this is in the wrong spot! I didn't really know where else to post this.

I'm quite new to buying tickets, I've never bought airline tickets myself before, due to being a young adult and not having a lot of funds to work with. Anyways, last night I got a cheap flight through American Airlines, and used the paypal option. It had an error the first couple of times, but then it went through. I'm waiting to get a confirmation, and it's been like 13-14 hours later. I thought I'd get it instantly due to the person I'm visiting saying he got his confirmation within an hour when he bought his when he flew last :(. I called American Airlines, and they said that they had no reservations for me, but paypal says it's pending.

Should I cancel the purchase and try again? Or should I wait a little longer.

If American doesn't have a reservation, there's a problem. Did you log onto the AA site to see your reservation? Is it there? If not, problem. If it is there, then it should be ok.

Did you get an email with the itinerary? AA sometimes takes a while to ticket.

If AA isn't showing a reservation I'd ask them to book the flight again and get a confirmation. This will be a second charge to your PayPal account or you could pay directly with a credit/debit card. Sometimes ticketing does take up to 24 hours but they should be able to see your request in queue for ticketing.
You can also contact PayPal telling them that AA does not show a reservation and you'd like to challenge the pending charge. But don't do this until after you've made your true reservation.


PS Miracle Whip is better :D

I haven't gotten my itinerary or any emails from AA. It's stuck as pending on paypal, and I can't cancel it. It says I have to wait for AA to complete my order, and it won't allow me to dispute it. I'm temped to just buy it, but I really don't want to have the double charges because I'm working on a budget here.

I'm worried to redo my payment, because I don't want to get charged twice or anything. Paypal, as I had said previously, just says it's waiting for AA to complete my order. I'm worried something's wrong though. It's been almost a whole day unfortunately. I should have written my confirmation code at check out, but I figured they'd send me an email by now. I'm worried to contact paypal since the payment is stuck in pending, and there's no cancel button. That makes me think it's somewhere between being done and stuff.

Just to check, you're purchasing the ticket directly from the airline AA and not some OLTA website, right? Are all of the segments domestic flights with AA flight numbers and operated by AA (not codeshares)?

Sometimes confirmation and ticketing can take longer when foreign partner airlines are included.

I did it all through AA, and no foreign flights.

I think everything will work out for you. Lesson learned though: Don't use Paypal for tix.

Do you think it's just taking awhile for Paypal or AA to process it and stuff :confused:? I'm kind of frantic because the person I'm going to visit is kind of riding me about making sure I get it taken care of since I'm leaving somewhat soon :((2 weeks or so). I assumed it might be because of the holidays, but I wasn't sure. At what point should I definitely start cancelling and rebuying?

Not necessarily because of this but because a credit card, especially in the USA, gives you much better consumer protections if something does go wrong. For this reason, don't use a debit card or pay by check (or cash, Western Union, etc.) if at all possible when travel is involved.

But I used 2 debit cards that are connected to my paypal, so :(

See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-ticketed.html

If you pay with a credit card you are protected if the airline goes bankrupt or if there are other irregularities. If you pay using the same credit card but through PayPal then all your protection and insurances fall away. I only just recently learned about this despite having been flying for quite a few years now. Never use direct debit cards. Could the direct debit card somehow be the cause of the problem, I wonder?

I hope that the several upcoming bookings I made with airberlin using PayPal will be ok! There is a possibility that the airline could go bankrupt during the coming months.

PayPal is, however, useful for certain other purchases because there is a very good conflict resolution department. I am speaking from a European perspective though, and here it is permitted to charge large bogus fees for using a credit card to purchase airline tickets. That is the reason I was using PayPal.

AA is having systems update to their website since 12/31 10pm till 01/01 7am, perhaps your ticket got caught in this loop and nothing will happen until them.

When you buy a ticket on aa.com, the web page you are using immediately shows the ticket as purchased (not ticketed). It also displays a 6 letter confirmation code (PNR) that is used to reference the reservation.

A while later you get a confirmation email, once payment is processed and a ticket number is issued. Sometimes an hour, sometimes longer, but it's certainly possible that the paypal payment is taking longer than a credit card would.

The question is, did you get that initial confirmation page? If so, did you print it or write down the PNR? And if you did, can you find the reservation using that here:
https://www.aa.com/reservation/findReservationAccess.do

I didn't write down the code unfortunately because I was hoping it would be emailed to me or I'd get my itinerary within a couple of hours. I'd like to get the code back, but I called AA and they essentially said they had nothing under my name. I got the initial confirmation with the PNR though