Paid I downgraded before R!?

Old Feb 17, 2019, 1:39 pm
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Paid I downgraded before R!?

I bought 3 tickets YVR -> ORD -> LGA. I put in for stickers for 1 companion. Both I and my first companion cleared into R at T-100.

When we cleared into R, I upfared my 3rd pax to I to sit with us.

After boarding the YVR to ORD, he was downgraded to Y to sit in a non reclining exit row and given a $500 voucher. Isnt it strange that they didnt downgrade R pax first?

Im planning to request a refund for his upfare, but isnt this odd?
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 1:48 pm
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Why was he downgraded? Was it an inop seat or potential FAM?
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 1:50 pm
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Originally Posted by Antarius
Why was he downgraded? Was it an inop seat or potential FAM?
To accommodate another PAX, not a FAM seat was 4A. Reason wasnt specified.
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 1:59 pm
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Originally Posted by donotblink
To accommodate another PAX, not a FAM seat was 4A. Reason wasnt specified.
interesting. Thanks for the info.
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 2:05 pm
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His original ticket was $229.80, then I paid an additional $333.78 for the upfare (for both segments) would you all go to prefunds.aa.com or write into customer relations for the refund? I seem to recall that usually refunds only gives the difference between discount I and the full Y fares (which I think is actually a negative value).
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 2:21 pm
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You said that a $500 voucher was given as part of downgrade, seems to me that no compensation is needed. However, it seems to me that you paid for 3rd person ticket, and they stayed with the voucher.
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 2:37 pm
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I dont think $166.22 is fair competition for a downgrade, especially considering its not cash but a voucher. This wasnt an offer of a $500 voucher for a downgrade it was a crew member instruction!
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 2:41 pm
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Originally Posted by donotblink
His original ticket was $229.80, then I paid an additional $333.78 for the upfare (for both segments) would you all go to prefunds.aa.com or write into customer relations for the refund? I seem to recall that usually refunds only gives the difference between discount I and the full Y fares (which I think is actually a negative value).
I think you will get the refund on top of the voucher. You are right to suspect that it might not be very much but if they low ball you, your $333.78 payment is pretty good evidence that you should get a reasonable fraction of that amount (presumably prorated based on the mileage of the downgraded segment). I actually haven't heard the "difference between I and full Y" trick being used much recently so I wouldn't expect that they'd pull that necessarily.

Use prefunds.aa first and then escalate if you don't get a favorable response.
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 7:39 pm
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The voucher is for the inconvenience. You should still be due a refund for the fare difference paid.

Doesn't answer why the paid F ticket got bumped though. It was probably based purely on status.
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 7:47 pm
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Originally Posted by donotblink

To accommodate another PAX, not a FAM seat was 4A. Reason wasnt specified.
I'm a little surprised that status (you + companion) was considered over paid upfare.

A refund of the upfare plus the $500 voucher sound like a great deal for a relatively short flight.
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Old Feb 18, 2019, 9:43 am
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Were you and your companion on the same PNR? If that was the case, and they only needed to downgrade one person then I'm not surprised they chose not to split up a pair traveling on one reservation.
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Old Feb 18, 2019, 10:24 am
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Sounds like they downgraded the last person booked into first class.
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Old Feb 18, 2019, 10:52 am
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I agree, it seems like the decision was made based on last person booked into F. Also I'm sure elite status was taken into consideration as well, not sure exactly in which order though.
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Old Feb 18, 2019, 12:02 pm
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Originally Posted by coolcoil
Were you and your companion on the same PNR? If that was the case, and they only needed to downgrade one person then I'm not surprised they chose not to split up a pair traveling on one reservation.
There were two PNRs, one for myself and passenger 2 which has no status and used stickers. A separate one for passenger 3, also has no status, on the paid upfare.

Its worth noting that the seat map at the time I upfared my third friend, showed 5 other empty seats in J (earlier last week).
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Old Feb 18, 2019, 3:41 pm
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Just occurred to me that I need to do ORC to get double eqm. Should this be completed before the refund? Would it impact the refund?
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