FlyerTalk Forums - Waived AA Change Fees for Amex Card members booking F80O fare via AMEX

What we know now:

Must be booked through ANEX PTS (Platinum Travel Service) or AMEX

AMEX Platinum members can contact AMEX PTS (Platinum Travel Service) and secure both cheaper fares than AA offers (when available) and fares with waived change fees for some routings, using AMEX “insider fares”, paying the $39 PTS booking fee (and $39 for ticket reissue if you change your original itinerary).

“If you book an "insider fare" on amextravel.com and pay with your points you will get free changes on AA ($39 phone fee applies per passenger)”

“If you want to pay in cash you have to call to get the insider/private fares... some agents know how to do it, others don't. You will have to pay $39 per passenger if you book this way...”

“Also, if you apply an SWU or upg with miles on one of these fares it makes it very difficult to change. It becomes an AMEX vs AA battle and can be very frustrating as AA takes "control" of the ticket when the upgrade is applied yet they still defer to AMEX for changes and AMEX defers to AA.”

Updated Experience: Obviously not every situation may work out so well but I just had an itinerary on insider fare (pay with points) which had an SWU applied. When I called AMEX, they said hands were tied. When I called AA Ex Plat desk, they said they had to call "contracts" to make any changes. The Ex Plat agent handled everything, made the change I wanted. I had to pay fare difference only (no change fee and no booking fees at all) and he applied the SWU to the new reservation. This is the 2nd time I've been able to make a change in this way, without incurring any additional booking fees (the prior one AA said they'd have to charge $50 to "takeover" the reservation but ended up waiving it because of my Ex Plat status). --cphurley

AMEX Centurion members may be able to do this as well, without paying the fee.

“AMEX Platinum Travel telephone agent today shared with me the magic code to mention to invoke the AA change-fee-waiver: F80O

said it applies to AA bookings made via both AMEX Platinum Travel telephone agents (Phoenix address on statement) and AMEXTravel.com for Plats (Chicago address on statement) bookings.”

Quote:

Originally Posted by Airstat (Post 29684015)

I used this a couple of weeks ago. I called the AMEX Platinum Travel and inquired about a ticket to BGI in business it was $200 cheaper than the AA website. She told me they normally had cheaper fares than what AA was offering. She also said it was changeable I just had to pay the $39 reissue fee.

What we don’t know

If this applies to a subset of AMEX cards or if we can find these easily online. Let’s add what we learn and fill in the blanks; looks like a great payoff.

Thanks to Airstat, Colin, kar don.