ARCHIVE: Transportation Voucher / vouchers / "MCO" FAQ and master thread
 

Just wanted to share my experience using an American Airlines paper voucher that I received for a voluntary bump (code DV), especially the struggle in getting taxes removed. I put a reservation on hold through the AA website and went to the airport yesterday morning to pay at the ticket desk using the voucher. The voucher was for $500 and the ticket total was about $531. I informed the agent that the voucher was tax exempt, and I used my phone to show the part on AA.com where it says "Transportation vouchers are tax exempt. Exception- vouchers with code OU are taxable." The base fare of the flight was about $461, and I used this site to tell her that US (domestic flight) ZP, and AY do not apply. She told me I was wrong and that only the $35 booking fee was waived, but I still had to pay taxes and thus owed $31. I then told her that the confusion regarding the taxes was apparently so common that there were internet sites created to assist travelers in explaining to agents that the voucher is tax exempt, and that if she called the tariff desk they might be able to finish the process. She again told me I was wrong, that I was not tax exempt, that I had to pay taxes, and that she was not going to call the tariff desk for something she already knew. That was a response I was not expecting. So, I used my debit card and paid the $31.

At the flight gate I talked to the AA employee at the counter and explained the situation, asking him how I could go about getting a refund. He told me taxes applied to vouchers and the woman at the desk was right. I told him that my understanding was that taxes do not apply, but that AA agents commonly incorrectly believe they do. Apparently this is not a nice comment to say, because he kind of scowled at me and told me I would have to wait till my destination location and talk to a desk agent there.

So I arrive at my destination and wait in a rather long line to talk to an agent. I attempted to explain the situation and showed my receipts and the information on the AA website. She cut me off half way through and asked why I was tax exempt and where my tax exempt paperwork was. I told her that I personally was not tax exempt, but that the voucher was tax exempt. She told me that the website only meant the booking fee was waived (even though the website says taxes are waived) and that I was wrong. I asked if she could call the tariff desk, she said no. I asked if there was a supervisor I could speak to, she told me there were a lot of people waiting and she was not getting a supervisor to tell me what she already told me, that I have to pay taxes just like any other customer.

Okay...so 2 attempts and 0 results. This was turning into a lot of work to get my $31 back, but it was my money and multiple websites have confirmed that AA agents do not know their own AA policy on vouchers. So, I called the AA number and explained the situation to the agent on the phone and my experience with the desk agents. She was friendly and polite and put me on hold to talk to a supervisor. She came back on and said....It's Tax Exempt.....and I should not have been charged about $50 in taxes. I asked why the two desk agents I spoke to were both unaware of that policy and why they couldn't have just done what she did to get the answer (it was a rhetorical question as I would expect she had no idea who the desk agents were or why they acted the way they did). She apologized and after about 30 minutes on the phone told me the credit was processed and I'd be getting the remainder of the voucher, about $22, mailed to me.

In the end, I suppose it might just depend on who the Agent is that you talk to at the desk and whether they 1) know the correct rules regarding vouchers, and/or 2) if they don't know or are unsure are willing to ask a supervisor. I'm thinking the agents I spoke too either honestly believed that the vouchers were not exempt, or were not sure but did not want to go and ask another person. It seems odd that this issue hasn't been resolved with a simple memo to all employees RE: paper vouchers, or a modification on the computer program to prompt agents using paper vouchers that not all taxes apply and to do "x,y,z" to price and process the ticket correctly. But, it's not my airline, so I don't really have a say in what they do regarding their SOPs. For anyone else that reads this and uses a paper voucher, If you receive push back from the agent about the taxes I would recommend getting a supervisor or just paying it and calling AA to have them reimburse the charge. I don't like arguing with a customer service agent, especially if I'm confident I'm right and they aren't budging, and even more especially when there is a line of other people waiting and I need to get on a flight leaving soon.

Thanks for sharing QuantumCatBox. The tax info will definitely come in handy once I use this $800 voucher I just got for volunteering on a recent flight.

On a related note, and because I couldn't find the answer in the sticky above, does anyone know if you can hold a reservation on aa.com and then have it ticketed using your paper voucher at a physical (city/non-airport) AA ticketing office?

American transportation voucher - can i use on US Airways flight?
 

title says it all, any thoughts?

Double posting is not allowed and will not help to answer your question faster...

US Airways | Dividend Miles > american airlines transportation voucher can i use on us airways

thank you

I'll ask the question in reverse - I've got a USAir voucher and would like to book an AA flight (and actually use my Alaska # :) ). I'm guessing that I should be able to do so (at least simply book the AA flight) pretty soon. Thoughts?

Can I Now Use AA Travel Voucher (eVoucher) On US Airways Metal as well?
 

I have a bunch of AA eVouchers - can I know redeem them for AA AND US metal, or just US metal?

To the best of my knowledge, that's one of the many questions that don't have an official answer yet so anything anyone says is speculation. Since mix and match of flights just started yesterday, I'd say call AA about using the vouchers for desired flights on either carrier. If you get a "no", call US and ask them. The worst that can happen is that you can't use the vouchers on US metal yet and you could get the response you want.

Jim

You can certainly book an AA flight - that started yesterday. Unfortunately no one knows yet if you can use a US voucher to pay for it (or vice versa in the OP's situation). So all you can really do is get speculation here or call AA (or US for the OP) and ask. Of course, you've got an additional wrinkle - crediting your AS account. That's probably not possible today - you can only credit to US or AA since AS isn't a US partner. There's also the pretty obvious - with merger integration proceeding forward, today's answer can change at any time.
Jim

Bumping this thread up. Does anyone know if we have an answer to this question? I have a VDB voucher from US and I'd prefer to use it on AA

No announcement about that as yet.

Vouchers are still only redeemable with the carrier that issued them. However many (but not all) flights are already being crossed sold. So you can book a US flight from AA using an AA voucher.

Has anyone ever been questioned at the airport using a paper voucher in someones else name to book a ticket in your name?

Nope never had a problem. Use my mom's vouchers frequently.

eVoucher Question
 

I am looking to use an eVoucher but can not figure out how to enter it on the AA website. I am given the option to pay with a credit card or paypal but not the voucher. Can anyone assist?

I am overseas at the moment. Could that be the reason?

What a maddening process to use one of these things. Tried to use a voucher (from a cancelled ticket) to book a trip for fiancee and I, mailed it to FL as requested. A week later the itinerary still hadn't been ticketed. I call, agent says it may be another 2-3 weeks before they get to it. What? No thanks. I tell agent to ticket our itinerary without the voucher - I don't want to delay our upgrade requests any further. They try to charge me the phone booking fee too, thankfully I argued with them and got it waived, saying I would've never used the voucher if I knew it would take over a month to actually issue the ticket (and process our upgrade requests). Says the voucher (now unused) will be mailed back to me. We'll see about that. I'm going to just write it off at this point. AA sure goes out of their way to make it as hard to use these damn things as possible.

Unless your departure date is very close, it often takes weeks to ticket with a voucher mailed in. That's one reason they have you write the travel date on the corner of the envelope when you mail it in. When I have systemwides in play I make it a point to ticket at the airport, even if it means a drive in, versus handling by mail.

Lesson learned for sure and in retrospect that's what I would've done - seeing that I live barely a 15 min drive from OKC. Just curious - now obviously I don't have the original voucher in hand since it's mailed in - but if I want to use it before it's mailed back to me (which is quite possible - assuming it ever gets mailed back to me in the first place) - how can I do it? I took a picture of it (didn't make a copy - but I can print out the picture which is basically the same thing as a copy). Would an airport agent accept that as proof?

Those vouchers are like cash - they're not going to accept copies. Many an agent has told me to treat is just like cash as it won't be replaced if I lose it. JUst last night at SFO the counter agent attached my voucher to some other documents to send in.

If handling by mail, I usually scan mine before I send it in, so if it gets lost in the mail en route to Florida I have the details for them to provide a replacement.

This is the BEST advice to take from this forum. I made a similar comment (post #680) a couple of years ago.

AC agents can ticket this for you. It's not handled too often by them, but usually at least one person knows how to do it.

You would need the voucher. The agent has to submit it when they use it for payment.

Hi AA FT Community,
Hoping for some help with AA Vouchers as I tried calling AA and wait time is > 2hour to get an agent. Long-time DL/NW elite here helping a friend with an AA issue. He has no status. Situation is that he had double-booked ticket last year resulting with one of the tickets being cancelled. He has the eticket # and PNR of the cancelled ticket, and was told it has positive value even after the cancellation fee. He was told he has one year to use the value. Now, he wants to use that value, but how does he apply it to a new reservation?
Thanks in advance for any insight.

He can place a reservation on hold on the AA website, and then call AA providing the past ticket info so they can apply the credit to the new reservation. They might charge him a telephone booking fee even though there's no way to complete the process on the web site on your own.

Credit is attached to cancelled PNR. Call in or go to airport to have ticketed.

You will need the ticket number from the original ticket. PNRs are recycled.

Thanks for all the quick feedback. Looks like I will be sitting on hold for awhile..

My flight is in 5 days and Milton still hasn't ticketed it from my mailed vouchers. What now?

Call and ask if your PNR has any type of notation that the vouchers have been received. I was close to departure once and they were able to look at the record and at least tell me it showed something had arrived in the mail. I was ticketed before departure.

Called. Nothing. They said Milton is behind. Fine, but isn't that the reason why we put the date of the flight on the outside of the envelope?

My upgrade just came through on a flight that isn't even ticketed. I didn't know that was possible.

They will only 'investigate' at T-48 hours.

Does Milton work weekends? My flight is Monday 6am, which means the entire 48 hour period is over the weekend.

Call now and tell them your flight is 6am on Monday. They should put you on hold and ticket right away. If not, escalate to a Supervisor.

You have a copy of your voucher(s), right?

Hello Everyone! I recently lost a $300 voucher (along with my wallet) in the seat back pocket. I called customer service, and they asked me to contact customer relations. Just sent them an e-mail, hoping they will replace the voucher or credit for future travel. Has anyone else had any experience with this? I've seen one story in which the credit was replaced, but thought I'd see if anyone else has tried this after losing a voucher. Wish me luck!

wrong forum.. (edit)

Transportation Voucher Help
 

I have a transportation voucher for $350 for medical help on-board AA. It arrived some 3 months after its start date. It expires in April . If I book a fully refundable ticket say NYC to Washington one way and then cancel it will they refund me back the voucher with an extension to use it or will it expire and hence i will get no refund? Are there any admin charges for refundable tickets?

What would you do?


Thanks

You can't turn a non-refundable payment into a refundable payment with greater usefulness than the original form no matter what you do. If you purchase a refundable ticket for $400, using a $350 voucher, you will receive back a $50 refund to your original form of payment and a reissued voucher for $350, with the same expiration date.

I would call AA and ask for an extension based on the time it took to get the voucher to you.

Administrative fees will depend on the specific fare conditions but are generally US$0 unless stated,