AA Oversold Business class on our flight this week, we lost award seats
 

Booked two sAAver business seats back in December departing this Wednesday DTW - PHL - EDI. Picked our seats at time of reservation, have since picked our meals. Logged in today to find that we no longer have seats assigned. Called AA and they said that the flight somehow got oversold and that "there was a schedule change that opened up your seats for someone else to book". Talked to an initial agent and then the "booking supervisor". No biz availability left, nor any the day before. No availability on partners for them to transfer us to on original date or the day before. Have been told the best course of action is to either have them move us to economy now or show up at the airport and "see what happens". (With the implication that getting moved down a class at the airport would come with better compensation) Has anyone had a similar situation? Resolution?

ORD-LHR on BA has J availability. Call them back and have them rebook you DTW-ORD-LHR-EDI.

There may not be any mileage availability, but that's AA's problem. Do not go to the airport to deal with it, it won't happen.

I saw that availability while talking to them and brought it up. They told me that they can only rebook me on partner award availability and not revenue flights. I was talking to the "booking supervisor".

Should I have kept pushing for that? They made it sound like policy but maybe I was just being too nice.

Under normal circumstances, yes. If they screwed up or IRROPS, then they can make magic happen. AA and BA have a JV - they can put you on that flight.

I would call back. also ORD-LHR on BA 744 > AA 757

First and foremost, DON'T ACCEPT THE DOWNGRADE!

When there is an aircraft change, sometimes your reserved seats will be lost, and if subsequently more people selected seats, there could no seats for you to select. But your reservation is still intact and AA is obligated to deliver you to your destination in J.

In your case, it appears that seats 4AB are blocked, so they will be unlocked some time between T-24 hours and T-1hours gate control. If it was not unblocked when you check in DTW, you will be issued a Priority Verfication Card for your PHL-EDI segment, when you get to PHL, go to the gate and talk to the gate agent.
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There is a BA liason that should be able to force inventory in this type of situation.

I would have pushed harder for them to rebook you on any flight with available business class seats. EF is showing 4A/B as blocked on your original PHL-EDI flight, so those seats are not necessarily assigned, but if the flight is oversold in business I would be worried. Don't count on getting things fixed at the airport on the day of, since there might be fewer options by then.

4 A & B are the seats assigned to us on our original booking! I'm not sure if there is anything I can do with this information? Call back with this knowledge? Check at exactly 24 hours out?

4 A & B are the seats assigned to us on our original booking! I'm not sure if there is anything I can do with this information? Call back with this knowledge? Check at exactly 24 hours out?

Call back and see about a re route on BA. Ask them to call the BA liaison to open seats if they have to - and remind them this is their issue, not yours.

It is an extra stop, but confirmed J is better than maybe J with the chance of being in a middle seat in Y

You can try to see if a phone agent will unblock those seats, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Besides the BA liason (which might take time that you don't have right now, given your flights are on Wednesday), AA can definitely open up award space on its own flights. I would ask to be transferred to a supervisor right away and explain the situation. The problem is that most AA flights are sold out in J on Wednesday. There are 2 J seats on RDU-LHR (connecting to BA), but that would transform your trip from a one-stop journey to a three-stop journey (e.g., DTW-CLT/ORD/PHL-RDU-LHR-EDI).

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

They’re trying to make it someone else’s problem. B.S! Though it’s technically true they can make it right at the airport, that’s a highly improbable scenario given many reports by other members. They can make it right on the phone, regardless of award availability on other AA flights and even calling the liaison to BA, an AA joint venture business partner transatlantically. What AA hath taken away, AA can give back.

There are plenty of J seats on PHL-MAN. From MAN to EDI, however, requires a connection in LHR on BA (unless you terminate in MAN and find other means to get to EDI—i.e., train or Flybe).

How long does it take to go through the BA liason (especially since right now it's 4:30 in the morning in the UK)? I've only had the experience of going through the JL liason, which took a few days (albeit my issue arose on a weekend).

Welcome to FT curranch90 and a caution that you only have one more post in your first 24 hours. There is some good advice above but basically you have more options ahead of time and before you leave DFW so find a bookable routing that you like and make it AA's problem to get you on it. Good luck!

Upon some further digging, it appears that AA has blocked 4AB for all PHL-EDI flights, and they appear to be not selling them anymore (some other day I see J2 - 2 seats available and 2 blocked). Maybe for some operational reasons (after they initially published those seats for sale), AA decided that those seats should not be assigned in advance (or should not be assigned at all). So OP was probably bumped off this seat.

Since this is an oversell situation, I am not expecting them to move you to a partner, because there could always be some chance that there will be a no-show and they don't need to rebook you. Just they won't offer to rebook you on OA when there is no seat to select in coach (they will just ask you to check in at the airport)

The problem is that AA only flies to EDI from PHL. Even if they managed to force open some award availability on their metal, you still need a partner award space to get you to EDI (which could take a long time to request). So my suggestion is to get to DTW early, and if this really an oversell situation, agents there should be able to book you on any available flight space (AA or Partner)

That’s not a bad idea.

I’m guessing the OP was FAMmed (seats given to Federal Air Marshals) and of course AA staff can not state that by law. I hope s/he gets sAAtisfaction.

Well, this is the situation on PHL-LHR for Wednesday, which does not inspire confidence in AA's ability to rebook OP for the same day if PHL-EDI is full in business. AA is probably hoping that it can downgrade OP into Y and maybe throw some consolation points at the situation, which is BS. Faced with the choice of flying in Y or waiting to fly in J (which would ruin vacation plans, etc.), AA is probably banking on the fact that most people would resign to flying in Y. Which again is absolute bull.

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I don't think so. As I mentioned above, the two seats 4AB are blocked for all the PHL-EDI flights. In addition, usually, FAM will not "book" the flight so much in advance

There is open award seats on BA LHR-EDI on 23 May, so that's not a problem. It's getting to LHR that is the issue. Most availability is on BA. The only flight on AA metal with 2 seats that I see is RDU-LHR (and the morning JFK-LHR flight, which likely won't work timing-wise).

Oh my lord I didn't check the loading. What's going on in London?! It appears that all the AA metal flights (even from JFK, DFW) are zeroing out!

Show up at DTW with a television crew.

Are 4A/B cockpit crew rest seats?
I know PHL-EDI is 7h 10m so less than 8 hours and the return is 7h 55m so I'm not sure if AA takes 3 cockpit crew on these flights or 2.

If this extends to the date of departure:

-Check into you initial airport separately.
-Fly to the US main US hub.
-Go to your gates and make sure they load your bags on the plane.
-Once the bag is loaded, wait until 10 minutes before boarding is over.
-Go to the gate agent to renegotiate your position. Keep negotiating until they are going to close the doors. If they do not come back with a satisfactory offer (for me it is a $750 in vouchers per person plus a full refund) refuse to board the flight.
Your baggage is already loaded and the doors are closing soon. They can call your bluff but that requires them to contact the ground crew, get them back to the plane, then have them find your luggage that has been checked in and loaded separately of each other.
-It costs an airline $78/ minute they are delayed. Unloading your luggage will take at least 30 minutes as they are in separate areas.

The total cost for the delay will cost them $2,340.

This weekend is a British summer holiday (Monday 27th) coupled with the famous Chelsea Flower show, it is busy here. Then after the first week of June almost many school finishes more people will be travelling out from London which will be filled by people going to UK for the summer camps and travels. So yes, it is going to be tough to get a seat as summer goes. Maybe time to see if any seats to Dublin or Madrid and then take Aer Lingus or Iberia+BA.

There is plenty of space open on BA via ORD. Call back and politely but firmly tell them that if the flight is truly oversold, they should rebook you. If it's just a seat assignment issue, that's a different story.

(I'd personally appreciate the slightly longer ORD flight, even if it meant backtracking, just so I could get a little more sleep.)

Yea, I'm leaning this way, the airline sold you seats. It's up to them to get you there and in the class you paid for. Doesn't matter if you paid with miles or dollars, you paid. Now, you could take the involuntary downgrade and push for some serious financial compensation. I certainly wouldn't accept miles, not even if it was a full refund for saver level. If they shelled out some serious vouchers I would consider it.

But yea, not having any availability (which btw, don't they have availability on every flight with Anytime or whatever name the awards are at?) is totally their problem. You're not the one that oversold the cabin.

Maybe I'm wrong, but reading the initial post of the OP it seems that the OP only lost the assigned seats. This can happen for a number of reasons; often equipment change. No ASR doesn't mean that the OP has been bumped from the J class cabin; most likely the OP is still confirmed on the AA flight to EDI. It would be very unusual for a carrier to offload the OP from the flight in advance even if the flight is overbooked in J class. Why should AA do so? If the flight is indeed overbooked in J/C this will be resolved at the airport/the gate.

So in my opinion the OP should check-in as normal and most likely the check-in agent at DTW will be able to assign seats for PHL-EDI as well - or the OP will be assigned seats at the gate in PHL. I don't get why we are even talking about rerouting here; most likely the OP will be on the AA flight to EDI in biz and if not, OP will be rebooked to another flight if needed or downgraded. The former is easily dealt with by airport staff and rebooking will be done regardless of award seats being available or not. But trying to rebook in advance will of course require award seats to be available like any other voluntary rebooking, but this has nothing to do with IRROPS on the day of traveling.

Right, losing your assigned seats stinks, but it happens. What it SEEMS like to me, and maybe I'm wrong, is that there was perhaps an equipment change and the airline assigned seats to "paid" customers, unseated these folks now are getting the runaround saying there "is no award availability" which is BS cuz they already had the availability booked. If IRROPS was dependant on award availability, the whole award system falls apart.

perfect analysis. assuming you really want to travel this week, show up to fly. if at DTW check-in you are issued a downgraded boarding pass for PHL-EDI, you should attempt to get the DTW agent to resolve the matter to your satisfaction which for me would be to maintain a one-stop connection DTW-EDI in J. i would be asking for AA to issue a FIM (flight interruption manifest) to reroute DTW-EDI on UA via EWR/IAD/ORD, on DL/KL via AMS, on AF via CDF, on LH via FRA. keep asking different AA employees until you find one to issue the FIM.

The key issues are:
1. Make this about you, not AA. There are a lot of people here who think that somehow you will teach AA a lesson. You will not. It does not care. No agent is sitting there and looking at how this hits the P&L. So forget silly revenge tactics.
2. Do your own research. You are flying DTW-EDI. Check other routings on AA/BA. Does not have to be via PHL. Write down what you find and then call AA. When you have specifics in hand, it is a lot easier. As others note, you might also consider MAN as a destination as it is easy to get to EDI (and don't fight now about who pays for a cheap train ticket). If it is AA metal, AA can simply force space. If it is on BA, AA may have to send its request through its OW liaison to BA's. That can take a few days. But, often on North Atlantic flights covered by the JV, a first-tier supervisor can make this happen.
3. As others note, AA is not required to do this. It could simply downgrade you, refund the miles difference and be done with it. It might also toss some compensation your way as a gesture.
4. Do not deal with this at the airport unless unavoidable.
5. If you would fly in Y before cancelling, ,do not accept the downgrade. Leave the miles where they are. This will net you seat assignments in Y, but on a J fare. This means that you are close enough to the top priority that there is a distinct chance that at least one of you makes it into J.

Finally, in your dealings with AA, be firm but unfailingly polite. You need to enlist someone to help you. Given that downgrades do not require anything other than a refund, if you are unpleasant, this is what will happen. It isn't the agent's fault and the agent is powerless to fix the overall system.

Let us know once your post limit is lifted.

Indeed, if AA can be persuaded to issue a FIM all issues will be solved - then it is just a matter of finding 2 seats in J class on any carrier to EDI.

I hope the OP will report back what actually happens tomorrow at DTW and/or PHL.

Are they allowed to downgrade you without compensation? And no chance of an upgrade?

99% chance that the OP will travel in J on the flights as booked, albeit not in seat 4AB.

To me this appears to be a storm in a teacup...

There is only 1 config of 752 with 16 seats. The other one is the LUS and has 12 seats and isn't going to be flying to EDI.