daslax

I jumped the gun... a little. The agent sent the $70 voucher about an hour before sending me a full explanation - here's where we ended up:

This doesn't address the transportation costs that we had going from a) airport to incorrect hotel, b) incorrect hotel to newly booked hotel, c) hotel to airport the next day... so I can't say I'm satisfied with the response, but I suppose it's just below the bare minimum. I'm still out of pocket by about $60. I will call it a day here, but they've certainly done nothing to make me feel better about very poor performance, both during and after the cancellation.

arollins

AA, going for greAAt.

Dave Noble

I would take it further , perhaps with DOT. It doesn't matter what its contracted rate is if it offered a hotel but didn't actually book it

enpremiere

Absolutely; it's not unreasonable and given the circumstances, you tried the option that they provided.

IAHtraveler

I'd push back, again. I had an issue earlier this year where I was connecting at a non-hub. MX delay caused a late arrival and missed connection. Phone agent said that someone would meet the plane and get me a hotel/meal vouchers and transportation. Never happened and I had to pay for my own hotel (hampton inn for nearly $300), rental car (no taxis were available), fuel and meals. When I asked to be reimbursed, they said "it's not our policy to reimburse for delays outside of our control." When I reiterated it was MX, then I was told that they don't typically pay for "delays". They finally agreed, but said that their contracted rate at the hotel was $110, and they don't pay for rental cars/fuel. After a few more back and forth, probably 8x total, they agreed to pay me cash for the hotel/meal and a small voucher toward the car/fuel. Or 15,000 points. I argued that it didn't come closer to covering my losses due to their MX issue and inability to get me a hotel, since I don't have access to their contracted rates. They finally called and offered ~1.75x my total out of pocket in the form of a voucher. I know I could have pushed for a check, but vouchers are basically the same as cash to me.

jmastron

Absolutely -- this seems to come up a lot with AA so it must be a trained policy excuse. Everyone who gets this answer needs to forward to the DOT for tracking at least.

Hey AA, it's great that you negotiated low rates with some hotels -- you're welcome to book those for us when you owe a room. If you're unable or unwilling to (perhaps because you didn't choose to contract for enough rooms to meet your obligations), you still owe a room, even if you have to pay more. Have your agents empowered to book another room for the customer, or deal with the fact that "reasonable" may have a different meaning when it's after midnight in a strange city and many hotels are full.

Otherwise, should the OP and fellow customers have raised a stink with the first hotel, insisting that they have a reservation and should be "walked"? Or should AA be required to publish these self-serving "contract rates", hotels names, and the codes to access them so customers can call around and do the AA agents' job for them? I''m SURE they don't want to do that, and it still doesn't let AA off the hook when they didn't contract for enough rooms.

wetrat0

Wow, this sucks. This year I flew KLM booked through Delta and had a delayed bag. I submitted receipts for over $300 worth of stuff and got a check issued by Delta within days. No status on any SkyTeam airline. Needless to say I was impressed.

OP, does your credit card have any kind of trip delay insurance? A card like CSR would cover the rest of your expenses after what you were reimbursed by the airline. If not, I agree with others, try one more time. AA in particular employs a diversion strategy where they try to wear you down but if you write back enough times you may get the full value...

Dave Noble

That your expectations were so low that you were impressed that the airline simply met its legal liability, says a lot about expectations of a US based carrier

catcher1

No retreat, no surrender?

bchandler02

Which is exactly why they try to pull this CrAAp. If more people stood up and pushed back and held them accountable, maybe things would be different. But when a large amount of people take their BS and move on, they have no business incentive to not try it on everyone.

stefg1007

A few years ago, I asked AA to reimburse me for a few out of pocket expenses (hotel, taxi) due to an error 100% on their end. They told me to pound sand. Their tune changed quickly after I served them with a small claims summon.

wetrat0

True, although I'm not sure international carriers are always better. A lot of them will make you jump through a lot of hoops to claim EC 261 for instance.

I guess I have been through enough of this kind of thing that I expect them to try to stonewall a couple of times before paying, and was impressed that Delta rep basically was like, "thanks for contacting us and we'll issue you a check right away."

CMK10

My brother was on the same flight as me, he's AA Gold and was on a F Saver Award. They offered to give him a voucher for out of pocket expenses plus some nominal amount but they'd take the miles back.

Your rhetoric sounds tough but what are we supposed to do? Sue them? Tell DOT who doesn't care? Fly another of the equally bad US airlines?

SamOF

Delta customer care would have handled a request like this from a non-status customer without a problem, and from a top-tier elite so fast your head would spin. For this particular purpose, the US airlines are absolutely not equally bad.

CMK10

Well I'm Platinum with American which isn't top tier and I'm Platinum Medallion with Delta which is a higher tier. In my experience Delta handles customer care complaints in an almost identical fashion to American.