ijgordon

Yeah, it was a serious question, there doesn't seem to be much specifics in the CoC. But they do say they endeavor to get your bags to you within 24 hours, but it could take longer if you're on a cruise, which implies maybe they will try and have the bags chase you around the Caribbean, although I'm sure that story rarely ends well. And I'm sure it's not uncommon to have a bag lost, say, on the way to CDG where you then depart on a grand European tour visiting multiple cities.

Agreed, although timing can always be an issue. I had a late-evening cancellation at JFK a few years ago, and it took THREE HOURS to get our bags back, apparently the midnight shift is a skeleton crew and they were focused on departing flights, and there were a lot of other cancellations as well due to some weather/crew time-outs (in our case, only because of the mechanical beforehand ).

But I'm not clear from the OP why AA couldn't get the bags to IAD for pickup the next day, maybe I missed that downthread. It wasn't a voluntary separation.
Regardless, an expectedly poor service recovery performance from AA, and I agree that they certainly owe the OP reimbursement for purchases at the destination.

svasandani

Clarification:
When the flight got cancelled at 1AM my initial expectation was they would just hand me back my bag. However when the baggage claim agent said that is simply not possible in a very definitive tone I suggested plan B which was to route the bag to IAD. The agent did not push back one bit and typed the full instructions for the bag room immediately on his own and even showed me the screen. it had flight numbers, departure times etc. very clearly stated. If only the bagroom folks had read his instructions the bag would have been IAD and I would have checked it in myself for my onward journey out of IAD. It is only after i reached IAD and the bag was in PIT that the discussion around delivering the bag to CPT came up.

svasandani

All I can say that there was not 1 person in AA or with other airlines who even for 1 sec felt that it was unreasonable request. I could hear the AA agents typing and researching flights to CPT and typing detailed instructions on the screen while I was on hold (obviously I could not see what they were typing since I was on the phone) unless they are good at faking by making keystroke noises. I personally think it was not a difficult task for AA to accomplish irrespective of whether it is in policy or out of policy if only the workers in the bagroom could follow instructions provided to them. it would have also not cost them anything.because transferring bags to other airlines is very common practice.

svasandani

I am now realizing I made a mistake by starting this thread. My hope was that people on this forum would understand my pain and provide ideas on how to phrase my email response to AA to extract maximum value back from them. However, it appears more people are focused on finding ways to defend AA's actions.

Nonetheless, I will admit though that I have learnt a few things that has increased my knowledge and could come in handy in the future.

C17PSGR

We understand your pain. I think you had a good plan and adjusted quickly.

But ...I think most of us dont believe that the situation in Dallas that night was AAs "when things get messed up due to the airline's fault." And if you start complaining that AA messed up by not predicting the fuel load needed when lightning strikes the TRACON, that's not a reasonable complaint. Or that AA didnt keep enough extra pilots around to take into account the impact of a regional air traffic shutdown with lots of flight diversions.

If you missed a connection because there werent any gates or they closed the door early, for example, I think we'd all be behind you.

Your best argument is the miscommunication.

Dave Noble

I don't think that people are all focused on defending AA - this is also not a forum where AA will be blamed regardless of fault. In this case, you had 2 separate bookings which has inherent risks; in this case, things went wrong

If AA was at fault in that you had a through ticket to South Africa and it failed to send the bags , then people would be pointing out that AA is liable for up to about $1500 for delayed/missing luggage and telling you to claim for purchases made

That there is close to uniform views on AA's liability, perhaps may want to consider whether perhaps AA is not at fault

Often1

It may be beating a dead horse, but the facts matter here. Analogies almost never work because of that.
1. You, for very good and ultimately successful, reasons, chose to cancel your AA ticket to IAD. At that point, you were no longer an AA passenger and you had voluntarily separated. There was little chance that AA would send the bags to IAD, but that might have happened because they were already tagged. There was no chance that an agent would or even could send the bags onwards to CPT on another carrier on another ticket without having a positive bag match.
2, In the cruise situation, you have flown to the destination and the separation from the bags was involuntary and not under your control. Thus, no security risk. More importantly, the kind agent did not have to ask another carrier to violate its safety & security policies.

Again, your booking choices and your handling of the situation were as good as can be on separate tickets, but there are limitations and this was one of them. Very doubtful that an agent could have even manually generated the tags even though it was a clear service failure that AA did not have someone around to deliver the bags to you on the spot.

svasandani

The reason for the separate ticket was as many of you know it is extremely hard to book an award ticket for 4 people in business class with so many segments to South Africa. Every blog post i have read advises that if you are unable to secure all segments that you should be prepared to buy a connecting domestic economy flight. I put in a lot of effort into booking the Star Alliance award ticket and was very willing to downgrade on economy for the short segments but simply could not make it work for the outbound DFW-IAD segment. I was able to include the return flight though from EWR-DFW. In the end my choices are keep looking forever, not go on the trip or buy a separate ticket. In the end i chose to spend an extra 40,000 Avios to buy a separate one ticket for all 4 of us. I was also aware of some of the risks of separate ticketing but by flying one day early out of DFW I felt I had taken enough precaution. it was probably the last big vacation as a family and a gift to my 2 sons for graduating from college and high school respectively with high academic accomplishment.

Without getting into all the details which have already been discussed extensively in this thread all I know and care is that I trusted AA to get me from DFW - DC (any airport) in a 24 hour window and they failed to do so and also misplaced the bag in the process. As a result i had to spend 50K UA miles, $222 is close in booking fees and $180 on a one-way car rental. Also, I had to spend $300 (very conservative for 4 pax in a foreign country) due to bag not being delivered. I strongly believe that due to absolutely no fault of mine that i should be asked to bear those expenses. Forget about the nightmare I had to go through with all the complaining from family members, if I can just recover my true expenses i will consider the case closed.

Dave Noble

AA is not going to reimburse you for the purchases. It was never going to deliver the bags to South Africa - it was only ever going to deliver them to a domestic point in the USA

You made the decision to make 2 separate bookings - the reasons why you chose to do it are irrelevant - whenever you make that choice , you have to accept the risks that go with it

Do you have travel insurance that would cover such a situation

ijgordon

Do you actually have support for that claim?

C17PSGR

i don't think anyone is suggesting you didn't take the right precautions or that it was your fault.

To the contrary, I think you together a great plan and scored four biz seats to Africa! I also think you took solid precautions!

I'm definitely sorry about the complaining and unfortunately understand that ... having occasionally traveled with ungrateful types in the past.

Seems like you had a great adventure with the family, notwithstanding the start of the trip.

svasandani

Very True. At the end it was indeed a very memorable trip. I would highly recommend anybody looking to visit a cool city to definitely consider Cape Town.
I definitely would not blame the kids for complaining / expressing their disappointment during that ordeal. At many times during that day it felt like the trip might not even happen.which would left anybody dejected let alone the kids. Infact when we finally decided to rent a car and drive to OKC my elder son volunteered to drive half the distance and I could catch some sleep during that time.

svasandani

I have 2 related but slightly off-topic questions:

1. If you were in my shoes what would you have done differently right from the very beginning from when I initially booked the tickets
2. If all the events remained the same as described above except that after pushing back from the gate the pilot noticed a mechanical issue, came back to the gate and then initially pushed the departure time by 15 mins in the hope that the mechanic can quickly fix the problem but then the crew timed out because the fix was going to take longer. What would be your opinion on AA's responsibility and how they should respond now.

Finkface

Nothing. You did everything right under the circumstances. You could only get 4 seats long haul by booking a separate connecting flight. Pretty much everyone here would do the same. You left a very acceptable 18 hour buffer between the flights on separate bookings. That is beyond what many (most?) of us here would have done. And overnight would ordinarily be more than sufficient, let alone 18 hours. Sometimes sh!t happens, and it did for you this time. In spades.

Often1

1. Probably nothing different. You did everything you could to minimize risk, but you hit the trifecta of bad luck and thus a low risk situation wound up costing you money. Short of booking a single ticket, you did what you could. You also took the best actions possible when things went south. Other than tired and out some cash, but for AA's baggage claim fail, you would have been "whole" on arrival as scheduled at CPT. On a single ticket, AA would have likely rerouted you DFW-LHR-CPT and you would have arrived 12 hours late.

2. I don't think that the reason for the cancellation mattered in the end. AA's obligation was never to do anything other than to get you to IAD. AA might have provided some small number of miles as a customer service gesture, but it was never going to deliver your bags other than back to your house once you cancelled and it was never going to cover consequential expenses. The reason might have mattered if you had simply been rebooked on AA the next day and needed a hotel and a meal or two, but that was not the issue you faced.

Take a careful look at your travel insurance. Most policies won't help here because of the separate tickets and thus no missconect. But, some do. Some will provide a flat dollar sum per passenger without specifics and that may be your best route.