Protected on later flight
 

Our 738 to jfk died at the gate today. Replacement bird is here now. Of course I called the EXP line as soon as I got off the plane and asked the agent to protect me on the next flight in J. She did and confirmed me on a BA 744 <redacted> in J. Then she asked me "if you make AA 100 please call us back to cancel the BA flight".

I've never heard this before and was wondering why wouldn't AA know when and if I board my originally scheduled flight and subsequently cancel the BA ticket? Why is the onus on me?

the know why you fly. they just don't know when you fly.

Why not just ask them to put you on one of the AA or BA DFW-LHR nonstop flights?

Not in real time when you're boarding some other carrier's flight, anyway.

I'm sure BA appreciates finding out sooner rather than later that the seat is became available.

Good point I didn't even ask. Considering those nonstops probably wouldn't leave until 6-7 hours later and I'm getting picked up at 7:30 Am at LHR it's probably all the better anyhow.

I checked in with the dragon at the FL here at JFK to cancel that ticket. That flight was wide open in J. What would have happened if I didn't cancel it? Would AA be looking at at $10K invoice from British?

I've been asked to call to cancel the unused leg even in simple domestic protection situations. Not my first choice, but I don't mind if it helps AA continue to protect me even when there isn't an official reason to do so.

The BA ticket wouldn’t necessarily automatically cancel itself, and AA staff wouldn’t have the bandwidth to proactively check if you made the AA flight, so unless you tell them that you made the AA flight, AA staff wouldn’t know to cancel the BA ticket even if AA staff could find out that you made the AA flight.

Also, oddly enough, I have gone standby on an earlier flight and my original ticket for the later flight not only want cancelled, but I also cleared the upgrade list in the later flight... even though I was already on the original flight, halfway through my trip.

So basically AA won’t necessarily know which flight you ended up taking, and even if AA could find out, they probably just have too much to do to monitor your flight status.

All they need is some software to do this. It doesn't need humans who have too much to do, and it doesn't need significant "bandwidth".

It's because AA no longer protects on two flights any longer, but EXP agents override that for EXP's. It is a wholly manual system and intentionally so. I will go away as an unwritten perk soon enough, largely if there are complaints from other carriers holding space which goes unused.

I've been asked to call back to cancel protected flights -- even for AA metal. I never really understood the importance of it either, but I always did so, as I consider "protecting" to be a very customer-friendly thing for AA to do. I say this especially because they've, at times, been particularly accommodating when protecting, including preserving premium cabin upgrades, and I recognize and appreciate the fact that they're pulling a highly priced seat out of inventory for me (sometimes full-fare F/J/Y because it's all that's left).

Bottom line -- if they're going to so much trouble to honor my requests, I'll do my best to try to honor theirs, even if I don't fully understand their reason for asking me to take the extra time to do so. I wouldn't wait on hold for an hour, but if they answer my call within a minute or two, I don't find it unreasonable.

In your case, though, I highly doubt they'd be getting a full-fare bill from another OW carrier if you didn't notify them in time, so I agree that the importance of getting back to them is certainly questionable.

Given the AA-BA Joint Business Agreement and revenue sharing, it’s doubtful that BA is going to bill in $10k for this type of error.

You can always use Twitter to cancel out the protection leg if you don't feel like calling.