ARCHIVE: Questions for 2018 about, guide to, listing of, compensation
 

2018 Questions about, guide to, and listing of, compensation (consolidated)
 

My luggage was lost traveling from Romania to Portland, Oregon (OTP-LHR on British followed by American to DFW-PDX), I arrived December 2nd, filed the property questionnaire on the 7th of December. I spent over 5 hours on the phone with various agents - I actually gave them a matching luggage number that the office in Romania located as a match in London - and nothing happened, no lugagge. Called again today January 12 and asked for compensation - email arrives within an hour that the luggage was found and I should provide delivery address. Agent working on this - Tonia - never available, never returning calls.

At this point, if my luggage does get delivered over a month after submitting the questionnaire, do they owe compensation? I had perishable items that must have rotten in the luggage, bought new clothes and cosmetics, etc. What can I reasonably expect?

Not getting a vegan meal is horrible AA, i feel upset for sure!
 

I just waited on hold for AA reservations for 30 min to ask for a vegan meal as we have 2 AA flights tomorrow and was told neither flight has an option to replace the meal and snack for vegan. Being really bummed, I asked, and there is no credit for food to buy in the airplane or airport or discount. So, they will serve dead animals to everyone around us and us nothing. This is not being the airline of the future for me with policies like this. :(

Dramatic much?

Which flights? And special meal requests need to be made 24h in advance IIRC. Some airlines even require 48h but I think AA only requires 24h advance notice.

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

You should actually check any airline’s website some time before flying to determine their meal policies. AA only provides special meals on long haul flights, specified on their website. See https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...solidated.html (Link) for particulars and links.

AA's special vegetarian meals are downright inedible. I can only imagine how bad the vegan options are.

You aren't missing much.

Sorry for your experience. I suppose you've learned that customers with special meal preferences are such a minuscule fraction of the population that airlines can afford to lose some of their business.

The pax who pre-order the Asian Vegetarian meal are very pleased with the option. I've served it several times and each time it's pre-ordered, I (almost) hope the pax doesn't show so I can try it as it looks and smells very appetizing. :p

As others have stated, AA requires any pre-ordered meal to be made at least 24hrs before scheduled departure. Best practice is to ensure you use the AA.COM website and not a third party website (Expedia, Travelocity, etc) as they often do not talk properly to AAs reservation...even when there is an option to 'pre-select' a meal on third party sites, it often doesn't translate over to the AA Sabre system.

FAs will know if you have pre-ordered a meal as it will be both on the Tablet as well as the Final Paperwork which is received prior to door closing. So if you say that you have pre-ordered a special meal, and the FA says it's not listed on our paperwork/tablet, 98% of the time, it was either ordered within 24hrs of departure so it doesn't get catered, or the reservation was done via a third party website. (very few times I have received a special meal when someone wasn't actually listed for the flight, but was re-accommodated from another flight)
Also, many frequent travelers have learned that if their plans change (changing to a different flight), and they pre-ordered a meal, often times that pre-selected meal doesn't get transferred to the new flight.

Hey more dead animals for the rest of us ;).

Interesting. May give it another shot. the last few times I tried VLML (i believe) and it was awful. Now I just eat the pasta dish.

That said, nothing prepared me for the special vegetarian meal on JAL a few months ago. Flying NRT-CGK, I swear they served me wet cardboard molded into patty like objects.

I have quite an interesting compensation issue, but not surprising given the rapid decline in customer service.

I took a flight back in May to Paris and back. On the return, the flight was delayed due to maintenance. I filed for EU 261/2004 compensation, but was denied. I dropped this and let it be after the denial was received.

This past November, I flew from New Orleans to Los Angeles, which suffered issues due to the catering problems ex-LAX. For this, we were promised vouchers, that did not come automatically. I wrote into Customer Relations, and have several emails back and forth, I was finally issued a voucher for the lack of catering onboard.

Last month, I received an email informing me that after changes to the EU regulations and an internal audit, that I was going to be given the EU 261/2004 compensation (still awaiting the check at this time).

Earlier this week, I went to use the voucher from the November New Orleans - LAX flight, but upon clicking the link to the eVoucher, I found that this was now invalid. I wrote into Customer Relations, and was told that the voucher was marked invalid as I was given EU 261/2004 compensation. The agent is clearly not understanding that these are 2 separate issues, even with providing all of the reference numbers from the emails of each issue, which were both different.

What would be the best way to get my voucher reinstated and for customer relations to properly understand their mistake here? Right now, I seem to just be going around in endless circles with them. Thoughts?

Panel fell on regional AA flight, blocking exit row
 

Flew last night from CMH to ORD. Upon landing, a giant panel fell over the exit rows. The response from AA has been, "shrug. It happens."

What exactly would you have done differently if your were the Captain and had been advised of it?

Your aircraft had landed and was hopefully taxiing to the terminal. What else to do besides offload passengers and repair it?

As the crew said, "it happens,"

Just wondering what response you expected. Were you asking for compensation?

Honestly, yes. I feel like that was a serious safety threat and we should have been compensated for being on a plane with this issue. We also had a pretty rough landing so it wasn't exactly a moot point.