ijgordon

But we are talking about AA and Barclay's (and I guess Citi). Not DL and Amex!

robertablake

This appears to be the case. I think this also relates to why we don't receive the reservation confirmation right away and why AA has to issues those ridiculous paper vouchers instead of issuing a credit back to your card. I had an AA agent tell me the reservation system and the credit card transaction processing system are not directly linked. Integrating the two was on their IT road map. Maybe someone hear has more knowledge on this.

nk15

mcrw00

beachfan

It's hard to tell what really went on, but if the claim is that they were locking up seats, and if these flights were selling options to hold a reservation for a time period equal to or longer than that actually held, then the damages are the price of the hold option AA was selling in that instance.

Of course, the hold may have been weeks, i.e., much longer than AA offers.

VegasGambler

I don't think that they actually charge your CC until it tickets. I could be wrong about this, but there is a delay between you "booking" a trip and you getting a confirmation that it was ticketed.

It's sort of like Amazon (and most other online retailers) -- you order something, but they don't charge the CC until it ships.

I'm surprised that they don't put a hold (pre-auth) on your CC at the time that you book. Online retailers are like this too though (in the rare case that I order something on amazon but it doesn't ship for 3 days, I don't see a hold until it ships)

In any case, regardless of how good or bad AA's flow of holding a res, authorizing a CC, ticketing the res, and charging the CC is... agreeing to buy something and knowingly providing fake/expired/invalid CC credentials is clearly fraud.

I'm curious to know what will happen if the $21k is not paid. Presumably paying the $21k also satisfies any claims of damages from these fraudulent activities. If OP does not pay, will AA just close his account, or also sue for the entire amount ($60k?).

Honestly the offer of settlement makes sense to me, even if the number does seem low. $60k is well above the amount that you can go after in small claims court, and suing in "real" court is likely expensive. And they are not guaranteed to win (they actually have to show damages, which is difficult). And if they do win, they are not guaranteed to collect (I have no idea what OP's financial situation is like, but many people simply cannot pay a $60k judgement)

If I were the OP, I'd actually be more worried about the criminal liability than the civil liability. These are federal crimes.

AeRoSpaceman

As @JonNYC stated earlier I agree that this won't end up in any sort of litigation. Either pay it or your done with AA. To much hassle in my opinion for them to even try to prove they are due these damages. I am sure they have done their due diligence and are pretty sure the OP is not going to pay at all. This was in my opinion an item to put in their file showing that they did offer in case the OP does try to litigate. Just my $0.02.. As bad as their IT system "might" be it is still cabale of keeping transaction logs on a basic level they can always use.

donotblink

I'm not a lawyer, but I find it kind of hard to believe that this is the type of case a prosecutor would want to take up for criminal charges. I'm not sure that's an effective use of my tax dollars.

jridge

This now runs to 7 pages and OP is long gone...

OskiBear

This is actually somewhat plausible because I had a similar situation myself just a few months ago. If I recall the sequence correctly:
I have the AA credit card that's the "Fly Now, Pay Later" deal where you get 6 months to pay off a ticket with no interest charged. I haven't used it in quite some time but decided to buy a couple of pricey tickets so thought I'd use it.
I purchased the tix on AA.com and then realized I needed a different flight date. So, I went in and did the free cancellation within 24 hours
The original charge was a "pending" on the credit card and I figured it would just fall off since it was before the flights were even ticketed.
Then, the next day, I purchased my new tickets on AA.com with the same card.
However, I was over the credit limit because the prior hold/authorization hadn't reversed itself.
I received an email from AA (possibly a day later?) that said my payment didn't go through and I needed to pay within 24 hours or the reservation would be cancelled.
So, I called them and gave them another card and ticketed it.

So, it would seem somewhat plausible that the OP could perpetuate his practice of "purchasing" tix and not actually pay for them for an extended period of time or simply allow themselves to cancel out.
However, it seems peculiar that AA wouldn't have put a stop to this after a few instances of the occurrence.

ryan182

AA doesn't charge your card until ticketing, and yes their tech is clearly that bad. I know this as I have AMEX push notifications for transactions that do not have the card present and I can tell when my ticket is issued because that's when I get the notification. I also found that the same applies for gift cards, I had 2 $100 AA e-giftcards in my inbox and while I knew I used one I wasn't 100% sure which; put in the first one and everything looked good then about an hour later I received an email that there was an issue with my payment and to call Which makes me curious, why the OP would do what he was doing...unless its different for a bad CC than GC because my email was subject "AA RESERVATION IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED" and the body stated I had 24 hours to correct the issue or have my reservation canceled. Now this happened on accident and only once, which is the exact number of times it should have needed to occur for the OP before they updated their CC so no sympathy from me but I will say I am confused at to why they did this to themselves, AA given already gives us 24 hours of free hold so pretty much nothing about the OP makes any sense.

josmul123

If you'd bothered to click any of those links in the bottom, you would have found your answer.
Almost all (maybe all) the fare rules state the following:By clicking pay now, you agree to the terms of the fare, and you create a reservation. The fare rules state you must ticket by midnight 1 day after making a reservation (which happens when you pay for it with a real method of payment). Ergo, you've violated the fare rules by creating a reservation with an invalid credit card (Unless you rectify the situation such that ticketing is completed by midnight 1 day after making the reservation), aside from the fact that you fraudulently provided a bogus card in the first place, which I liken to bouncing a check. You've entered into an agreement bound by the fare rules and CoC when you click Pay Now, and OP can and will be held to those rules, which include tendering payment to advance the ticket to Ticketed status "by midnight 1 day after making a reservation."

Seriously, it was one click.

josmul123

I don't think it was a question of an expired credit card. You can easily reject an expired credit card without trying to authorize it based on the date (I bet AA does do this).

The issue was a cancelled card that may have still been within its useful term, but isn't valid as it's not an open account anymore.

mikesyr18

Payment is due at the time you book your flight. Once you click the "book now" button or whatever it says, you're agreeing to a non-refundable flight with AA.

The grocery store doesn't let me take the groceries home if my card is declined at the register.

Dr. HFH

I'm with those who have little sympathy for the OP. That s/he got away with this strategy for so long doesn't surprise me; but OP was definitely and knowingly gaming the system. I wonder if s/he knows Mr. Hayes....