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It is nice when you can recognize exceptional customer service at American.

My wife and three friends returned from Chicago to Orange County at the end of the cruise, first class on miles. One of her friends left her Kindle in the seat pocket when they landed in Orange County. Two days later an American customer service rep from check-in called my wife, note: she had made the reservations, to say that a piece of electronics had been found in a seat back of the row of the flight she and her friends took. It wasn’t my wife’s, but she checked and it was one of the other party members.

My wife called American back and spoke to Viola, who had called and left a message. Viola said they could keep the item at the check-in desk for a few days until my wife’s friend could drop by and pick it up. Later the women did so.

Wow, I don’t think it gets any better than that. Next time I’m at Orange County I will drop off some of the outstanding service coupons to Viola.

fotographer

nice to hear nice things about AA, even though most passengers always post when they have to complain about something.

odie11

If this should be in another thread-sorry-please move it.

Just wanted to call out kudos to AA customer service to their response to a recent situation. My husband was traveling on a paid business class ticket from BDL-LAX-SFO. He showed up at the airport close to cutoff time and was denied boarding. The guy at the counter apparently was a real jerk. He told my husband he could reroute him through Charlotte and that even though the first connecting flight out looked tight on space, there should be no problem after that. As it was, when he passed the gate to LAX, it was still open and with only carryon, he could have easily made it.
He arrived in Charlotte around 10:00 AM and sat there until the last flight left at 11:00 PM and was put on standby for the first flight out the next morning and mind you he is Platinum Pro so he had some priority. He did not make the morning flight, and since he had already missed his meeting, he returned to Hartford. The agent should have seen that all the other flights were oversold in Charlotte and never should have sent him.
I wrote AA customer service about this two days ago (almost six weeks after the incident) and today they issued a voucher for the vast majority of the ticket with a sincere apology-so kudos to them.

fotographer

Its always nice to hear about some of the good things that AA customer service does.
Some of the gate agents can be .. .. well not so nice..
its a shame that these particular agents do not realize that they are in most cases, the
faces of AA, and as such , should behave according.

USFlyerUS

Just curious, if he only had carry-on, why didn't he just go to the gate when he arrived at the airport? He likely would have gotten on since the LAX flight was still open, especially without spending the time talking to the counter agent.

Madison Guy

Perhaps no electronic check-in/BP prior to cutoff?

It would be helpful to know just how long before scheduled departure time he was old no by the ticketing agent...

dave_261

Gotta be honest... a thread about 'kudos to AA customer service' where the PAX essentially wasted 24 hours of his life and had a trip in vain is perplexing.

rumboj

Well, AA did try to “make it better” with a re-route plan and to “reduce the sting” of the situation with a voucher. They probably didn’t NEED to do any of that because the whole fiasco was likely caused by the customer arriving at the airport late. In that instance, the initial agent could have made him buy a new ticket outright and messages to AA Customer Service could have yielded a “go fly a kite” response.

dave_261

Assuming the PAX arrived within 2 hours of scheduled flight time (which seems logical in this scenario), AA wouldn't have made him buy a new ticket given the 'flat tire fule'.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Why one if available should always mobile check, particularly without bags. In this case he could have simply gone to the gate & got on his original flight.

Gino Troian

I've actually had a wonderful experience this past week with the AA CS in Memphis. The early morning MEM-CLT flight had an indefinite MX delay, meaning I would more than likely miss my connection in CLT to SFO. AA called and said that they'd protect me in J on the next available flights to CLT and SFO. Awesome.

A few minutes later, I received a call from a wonderful gate agent in MEM asking if I'd be interested in taking the MEM-DFW flight in Y (which was on final boarding; just a few gates down) then on to SJC in J, getting me into the bay area a couple of hours earlier than originally scheduled. I happily accepted. Walked to the gate, was presented with the new boarding passes and was on my way. The GA was also nice enough to get me an empty row on the short hop to Dallas.

The best AA experience I've ever had in the past few years!

odie11

He only had carryon but thought it would just be easier to check. He told the agent so, but it made no difference to him. He was close to the cut off time, like within 30-40 minutes but still enough time to have made the flight. In hindsight, he should have just gone straight to the plane-he certainly recognizes that.
I'm not too sure why trying to call out AA for doing something nice and finally giving customer service beyond what might be necessary is so perplexing. I thought it was very nice of AA to issue a voucher as yes, I suppose they really did not NEED to issue anything. My only point of the post was to give credit to AA for doing something positive in the customer relations department because we have been loyal to them for decades (our daughter was platinum with them three years running beginning at age seven and gold on and off a few more times) and their customer service has always lacked in many aspects. This was a bit refreshing. And frankly, every now and then I think its nice to actually read a positive post instead of all the negative ones.

dave_261

Definitely agree. We need more positive posts about AA, and that would come from AA's front-line workers being more positive in general. But any post where you put 'the guy at the counter was apparently a real jerk' doesn't exactly read as 'kudos to AA'.

I think what you're getting at is that typically, AA creates a mess and then refuses to provide a meaningful response beyond a form email and token amount of miles. And in this case, they took a bad situation and provided a thoughtful response, turning lemons into lemonade.

odie11

Exactly! Which is why I said kudos to customer service not to their ground crew!

Often1

Still need to know whether OP's husband was checked in prior to his arrival at BDL, e.g. via OLCI. If checked in prior to T-45 and at the departure gate by T-15, he was on time and ought to have been boarded.

Presuming that OP's husband missed the T-45 or T-15, AA rerouted him (within policy, but not as a legal requirement) and it sounds as though the rest of this was simply the bad luck of the draw and it was a courtesy for AA to provide a voucher.

For the benefit of others:
1. Unless there is a problem, always check in online and go straight to the gate or if one has checked bags, allow time for that. Bear in mind that the domestic deadline of T-45 is "checked in" not standing in line.
2. If no reason to go to the counter, don't. Nothing will be made better and it can only get worse. Go straight to the gate.
3. Don't cut things too close.