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Is it okay to book a back-up one-way ticket?

Is it okay to book a back-up one-way ticket?

Old Feb 27, 2019, 3:55 pm
  #16  
 
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Originally Posted by digitaldilemma
From my travel agent:
book a non-AA airline.
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Old Feb 27, 2019, 4:00 pm
  #17  
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Originally Posted by Often1
AA's software is far more sophisticated than that old trick. It looks at many factors, not the least of which are name, date of birth, credit card, address, IP address, and other factors.
Try and stick to the facts please.
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Old Feb 27, 2019, 4:24 pm
  #18  
 
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JDiver Thank you for the AA T&C. Iam "more imprssed " by the quoted post from OP's TA. Can be problematic.
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Old Feb 27, 2019, 6:14 pm
  #19  
 
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Originally Posted by HMPS
JDiver Thank you for the AA T&C. Iam "more imprssed " by the quoted post from OP's TA. Can be problematic.
TAs legally operate as an agent of the airline... and can be hit with debit memos (or be revoked from issuing tickets for that airline). so that can be problematic for the TA

not sure how it's against TSA regulations? anyone know of a rule?
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Old Feb 27, 2019, 6:43 pm
  #20  
 
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Its a good point about travel agents, they are definitely constrained in this area and so I would be surprised to find a business travel agent who would be willing to book this upfront. That said, omce you have started travel and you change you plans, I have not found AA to be as draconian as some in the thread suggest they might be. I often rebook on a different AA flight with a new ticket when that is more economical (or just plain possible given restrictions in the original RT) and have like another poster above found there are many times when AA will in fact give a (not insignificant) refund to the remainder of the original ticket. Nobody here should be surprised at how often there is a schedule change, delay or other issue that AA deems adequate to trigger a refund.

But a word of caution, even if my TA allowed double booking a return with AA at ticketing time of the original AA RT, i would not do that, I think you are playing with fire doing that.
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Old Feb 27, 2019, 7:06 pm
  #21  
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I assume the $75 fee is for SDFC, key word being “same-day”. Don’t think you can change to a flight the next morning...
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Old Feb 27, 2019, 8:35 pm
  #22  
 
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Has the return flight time changed at all since you booked the trip? If the departure happened to move up, even as little as 30 minutes (better if it’s more) then you could probably move to the next mornings flight at no charge.
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Old Feb 27, 2019, 9:22 pm
  #23  
 
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Originally Posted by digitaldilemma
From my travel agent:
lol

Id fire that travel agent.

Yes, they are following the rules and CYAing... feels like they work for AA and not you....

My TA could keep a return booking 'alive' for a week, no problem- he can always cancel a booked ticket within 24 hrs, so could just keep rolling it along. (Unless your one way has some unique advance purchase) Book, hold, if invetory is there, book again, cancel the old. Rinse and repeat.

My TA knows that if the fit hits the shan, and something rolls back onto his agency, I am good to cover it. Over the years I have never had to cover any issue. So we are both WAY ahead.

Finally, they left out the cost to change the ticket after you fly the outbound and just rebooking the return. As pointed out above, the $75 SDFC is possibly not accurate. They'd be toast in my book. "Let us know what you want to do"??? Right.

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Old Feb 28, 2019, 8:11 am
  #24  
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Originally Posted by Exec_Plat
lol

Id fire that travel agent.
Easier said than done when you're a peon in a large corporation that requires business travel to be booked via the corporate TA.
Of course, it's also easier just to expense through whatever the change fee is if the underlying business meeting time changes.
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Old Feb 28, 2019, 10:41 am
  #25  
 
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Originally Posted by digitaldilemma
From my travel agent:
Your travel agent is an idiot.

There's no such TSA rule, and AA's systems won't detect or care about a flight the following day.
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Old Feb 28, 2019, 10:47 am
  #26  
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If it's coming out of your own pocket, I can see why you would want to use the approach of booking a backup ticket.

If it's company paid travel(which I surmise it is due to the company TA intervention), why not just switch it now and let the company incur the change fee/fare difference. You seem to have good justification.
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Old Feb 28, 2019, 11:08 am
  #27  
 
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Originally Posted by Exec_Plat
lol

Id fire that travel agent.

Yes, they are following the rules and CYAing... feels like they work for AA and not you....

My TA could keep a return booking 'alive' for a week, no problem- he can always cancel a booked ticket within 24 hrs, so could just keep rolling it along. (Unless your one way has some unique advance purchase) Book, hold, if invetory is there, book again, cancel the old. Rinse and repeat.

My TA knows that if the fit hits the shan, and something rolls back onto his agency, I am good to cover it. Over the years I have never had to cover any issue. So we are both WAY ahead.

Finally, they left out the cost to change the ticket after you fly the outbound and just rebooking the return. As pointed out above, the $75 SDFC is possibly not accurate. They'd be toast in my book. "Let us know what you want to do"??? Right.

This is called churning and is specifically prohibited by the ADM Memorandum/ Policy of most airlines. If your TA does it very infrequently it won't get picked up by data analytics, but anything more than that and the ratio of tickets issued to inventory put on hold will stand out. AA might investigate, and thereafter debit memo the TA up to the full fare for each instance where inventory was held to "save a fare" for a customer with scarce intention of ticketing.
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Old Feb 28, 2019, 11:16 am
  #28  
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Lightbulb

Originally Posted by Unionruler
This is called churning and is specifically prohibited by the ADM Memorandum/ Policy of most airlines. If your TA does it very infrequently it won't get picked up by data analytics, but anything more than that and the ratio of tickets issued to inventory put on hold will stand out. AA might investigate, and thereafter debit memo the TA up to the full fare for each instance where inventory was held to "save a fare" for a customer with scarce intention of ticketing.
Correct. There's a separate department at AA (not normal corp security) that enforces this, and enforce it they do.
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Old Feb 28, 2019, 3:22 pm
  #29  
 
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Originally Posted by JonNYC
Try and stick to the facts please.
The true facts were detailed in a Hollywood documentary called "Minority Report".

AA knows what you will think......
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Old Mar 1, 2019, 10:00 am
  #30  
 
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People miss their original flights all the time and buy new tickets not a problem.
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