quillbin

I had some eVouchers that AA gave me due to a poor experience on a prior flight and I used them to book a flight from PHL-SFO for later this month. I went to check my bank account for something else and AA charged me the full amount and said they had no record of the vouchers being added to the reservation. I called C/S and they said "There's nothing we can do except refund you and re-book (refund within 6-9 days and re-book AND charge more than what I initially paid). I gave in and had the rep re-book me to avoid a rebook fee but still ended up paying $50 more for the flights than I should have paid in the first place due to AA's mistake. What should I do? Ask for compensation later on?

Every time I fly on AA it is always one thing after another and I was only booking on AA because they gave me these "Customer Satisfaction" eVouchers. Needless to say it's not changing my dissatisfaction with them.

LondonElite

Nightmare might be putting it a bit too strongly. Ask for compensation afterwards, though this might have a stronger chance of succeeding if you had some screenshot or email proof that you applied the vouchers. Failing that it's your word against their word.

quillbin

Yeah, But when you are a college student, having $500 Fly out of your bank account unexpectedly isn't fun; double so when it takes this long to get a refund for something that was 100% AA's fault, as well as having to pay more for the flights than I would have in the first place.

rjw242

Always check the receipt. Lesson learned.

arollins

Did you book this online, through the AA.com website? If so, right at the end on the moment of payment you are given 2 options, credit card, or other form of payment, click on other form of payment, and you are given the option to enter the evoucher # (16 digits I think), paypal, gift card, and/or payment plan. If you enter the wrong # it will show voucher/card not valid. I've done this numerous times with no problem.

If you did this via the phone, most likely you got charged a phone fee and it will be a case of your word vs them. You could complaint to AA, perhaps they will throw some miles your way. Seeing that you mentioned numerous problems with flying AA, perhaps you should consider another carrier. Good luck.

quillbin

The flight was booked on AA.com. I put the eVouchers in the appropriate places and it didn't say anything about not taking my vouchers until after I had completed the purchase. But they couldn't even be asked to give me the original price? If you bought a new TV on sale at Best Buy and it was damaged, but the price had gone up between purchase and return would they make you pay the difference (for the same item)? Of course not.

CloudCoder

Your best option might be writing to AA Customer Relations. Explain clearly and briefly that you applied the vouchers online yet some glitch caused it to charge you full price. You're thankful that AA was eager to do the right thing. AA almost completely restored the transaction to the pre-error state. The only itty-bitty detail is that now you're paying $50 more than the original price (i.e. the error cost you $50) because the original price was $50 lower than the price on the day when AA made the correction. Then explain that you know AA wants to completely correct the transaction (because they've already corrected most of it), and you know how happy and relieved everyone will be after that tiny little remaining part (the $50 fare difference) is corrected, and to please let you know if there's anything you need to do, to help them finish correcting the transaction.

Segments

You keep saying "bank account"... did you use a debit card? Recommend you use a credit card in the future as it will have less impact on your cash flow as a college student. If you called AA as soon as you noticed the online error regarding eVoucher, then the charge would still be in pending status. Even if it still takes 6- 9 days for the refund to process you would only be impacting your credit limit during the interim as the refund would likely process before card payment was due.

But yes, AA is horrible about timely processing of refunds even for flights cancelled within 24 hours of booking.

LondonElite

Isn't there a final screen that shows the net price you will be charged? Did you see this?

beachmouse

AA web site is moving into my 'verify rather than trust' list after trying to buy a ticket with some GCs yesterday, having the GCs seem to get processed correctly, and then getting a 'transaction declined, call customer service' message about 45 minutes later. I suspect that if i'd paid any part of the ticket with a credit card, they would have just tried to charge the whole ticket to the card. (Ended up calling in and the GCs credited properly after telling the CS rep the INs again)

My sympathy to the OP because it seems like their system is a bit wonky for alternate payment methods.

quillbin

Unfortunately I Did use a debit card, but the transaction was still pending and I called C/S 10 mins after booking and yet they could do nothing.

The smallest state

Cut you losses and run.............

quillbin

I emailed AA customer relations about 24 hours ago and they haven't responded yet. I will update you all when they do. Needless to say my next PHL-SFO trip after this one will be on UA as they will probably not cause mistakes that lead to major financial headaches and IRS level refund times.

Dr. HFH

Yes, of course. United never screws up.

ijgordon

I'm sure they're due.