saaveraward

Mods - please do not move as it involves IIROPS, award tickets, partner airlines and ticketing rules

I was on a saaverward MLE-AUH-JFK-XXX in F on EY/AA

Due to the blizzard last month, AA canceled JFK-XXX prior to start of travel.

Since the flight was canceled (and inevitable AUH-JFK would be too), I needed to be in a new final destination city.

I called AA and explained this to them.

Rep said:

1) They could not take me off the EY flight to JFK because it was listed as on time in the system.

2) The computer could re-route me anywhere at any time but would land me in XXX.

So the rep took off the XXX segment and made the ticket MLE-AUH-JFK.

While standing in MLE, EY canceled the AUH-JFK flight.

EY stonewalled and refused to be of any help.

I got lucky and reached AA through wifi in the lounge.

Got rebooked MLE-AUH-DFW all on EY.

Went to the EY F lounge in AUH and asked they liaise with AA to get me to a new final destination.

They said their AA counterpart in AUH (is there such a thing?) wasn't in to work yet but they would work on it while I flew. It's a 15+ hour flight so plenty of time and I gave multiple flight options out of DFW.

Landed in DFW, EY person meets me at the gate and simply says "I'm here to show you where the AA counter at DFW is." Ummm.... not exactly what I needed.

Approach F counter at DFW and agent tells me my ticket is "finished" and if I want to go anywhere I have to buy a new one.

I say, I understand weather disrupted operations which isn't your fault, but as a courtesy can you please get me to my final destination. Or if not, can you charge me the destination change fee and ticket me through to a final destination.

She says no.

I ask for a ticketing supervisor who never shows.

The answer was bizarre after she said she consulted with the supervisor. They MAY by willing to fly me back to XXX as a continuation of the ticket. But this was vague and a specific offer not extended so I apologize I can't offer more clarity. And again, because of the disruption, I couldn't go back to XXX anyway.

But if I wanted to get to YYY, I needed to buy a new ticket, which I did, plus paid (had no idea until I looked at the receipt) a $35 agent fee, lost priority bag tag, other airport amenities, etc.

AA customer relations says you used your ticket, you're done.

Now, AA may be completely in the right as I'm only relying on what I think are applicable rules for changing an award ticket which I was willing to pay for. And I don't know, for being on an international F award ticket, if I was asking for a "courtesy" they would never give since I was displaced and had to change destinations because of it.

Is there a specific rule someone can point me to in terms of what should and should not have been offered here?

JonNYC

To begin with-- because, at least to me, your post was extremely confusing, is this the short version?

And, is there any reason we need to do the "XXX" and "YYY" stuff?

saaveraward

I don't post my location on FT or anywhere else for that matter. Thus XXX and YYY.

The point is, due to the disruption and time lost I could no longer travel to the original final destination. I had to go to a different final destination and again would have paid the change fee to do so but was hoping for a courtesy. I got neither.

On the original ticket, AA had 1 segment. In the end, AA ended up with 0 segments (which I am saying for clarification, not due to any policy).

JonNYC

OK, good luck.

flyerCO

First off you've posted your location by listing all the other cities. Second unless you're a spy no one cares, having your location means nothing. If you really don't want people knowing where you are, you shouldn't be traveling commercially and should flying private. I get the desire for privacy, just think people don't think it through on this XXX/YYYY/AAA/BBB for city codes issue.

Second once you had AA drop the XXX (I'm guessing brothel due to privacy concerns. joking of course since it's April Fools Day) you no longer had a ticket to XXX, only to JFK. The only place they had an obligation to get you to was JFK at that point.

omaralt

Was the JFK - xxx on a separate ticket? If so they have no responsibility to get you there.

I also don't understand the whole XXX/YYY thing. Unless you live in a city with a population of 10 people..

saaveraward

<redacted>

Everything was on one ticket. There were no separate tickets.

controller1

That's a good security measure. I can't tell you how many times I've had reservations cancelled or received crank phone calls at my hotel. It's so easy to call the airlines and cancel a reservation for Mr. controller1 or call a hotel and ask to speak with Mr. controller1.

saaveraward

We'll truthfully I had a very ticked off travel industry person contact me after posting on FT once. And it wasn't even a critical post.

ijgordon

I guess I'm confused as to why, once JFK-XXX was cancelled, and OP then decided he wanted to get to YYY instead, why he couldn't just have AA change the ticket to MLE-aaa-bbb-YYY. (where aaa/bbb are any potential connecting points to get from MLE to YYY.) They would normally have charged $150 for non-EXPs to change the award, but perhaps they would have waived given the JFK-XXX cancellation. Was there no saver inventory on any other routing to get to YYY?
If not, I suppose it's not really AA's issue. And it's a drawback of being on an award ticket. Based on the original ticket, they were obligated to try and get you to only to XXX, and it seems the agent said that's what the computer would do.

And then I'm guesing that EY was able to force you onto AUH-DFW, something that AA couldn't do since there was probably no award availability. But EY probably wouldn't have been able to tack on an AA segment beyond DFW to keep the ticket live, since EY can't book AA award space.

I suppose OP was caught between a rock and a hard place given the weather in JFK and his desire to change his ticketed destination on an award. As JonNYC said, good luck.

Possibly the kind of thing that good travel insurance would have helped with.

JonNYC

Be bold. Like me.

Aliquot

Very confusing post. The XXX/YYY only makes it worse. Was this an attempt at hidden city ticketing? If not, why did you have them change the ticket to terminate in JFK? Once that was done you only had a ticket to JFK. Then somehow you ended up at DFW and wanted AA to fly you to a fourth city for free?

eponymous_coward

Many times the XXX/YYY usage is "well, I did something dodgy and I am afraid AA security goons will find me, or other FTers will ruin this perfectly lovely hack I have". So I suspect that is where that comes from.

ijgordon

I think it's a confusing post because it was a confusing situation with weather cancellations, some flights being canceled earlier than others, and then OP's need/desire to try to salvage the ticket by getting to another city. Honestly, I think confusion over XXX/YYY is a red herring, sure it prevents people from suggesting specific alternatives, but it doesn't really obfuscate what happened. Change it to whatever cities you want.

But in any event, if he was able to get AA to re-book the ticket to YYY before departing MLE, it would have been fine. Because of a chain of events, he couldn't, and things went south from there.

saaveraward

So to try and answer those questions:

I would have been happy to fly mle-auh-jfk-new destination but the AA agent said it was kind of pointless and the inbound to JFK was probably going to scrub at some point. They just couldn't do anything about it until EY updated their systems which was a full 24 hours later.

AA moved me to dfw on EY. Not sure if saaveraward was available on that flight or they asked for something to be opened.

After that point I could not get in touch with AA to extend the ticket to a final destination which is why I asked EY to help and talk to AA. Not privy to what, if anything, they did on my behalf but obviously nothing happened.

So when I landed DFW I was out of ticket.

Sounds like this was the correct, but unfortunately and possibly preventable, outcome.

EY station manager refused to put me in touch with EY or AA on the phone at MLE and that I would be stranded in MLE, so I had to scramble pre departure. But that's a whole other story. He told all US bound passengers you will stay on Male for 3 days and if you board the flight to AUH, EY will no longer be responsible for your onward travel. That was a surreal moment.