jerseytom

On a related topic, I'm curious what everyone here tends to do with boarding passes and *proactively* keeping travel documentation. Print at home? Have them printed at the airport? Use a smartphone? Multiple in combination?

I've definitely had occasions of a printed BP (from either home or the airport) not scanning at the gate, and the GA having to key something in manually... which in the context of experiences in this thread is perhaps less than reassuring. Smartphone BP I don't think I've ever had issue with but then you don't have a tangible record, short of taking a screenshot. Not sure if that counts.

So what can one do proactively, to best "prove" or have some preponderance of evidence that you were actually on a flight?

IADCAflyer

I do multiple. Print to pdf when checked in to have a backup, send to phone, and if time is available, print physical pass at airport.

SJWarrior

True, but you forgetting the fact she could see I had purchased a RT from MIA. I didn’t have a stain on my shirt from the B&C bbq I had the night prior.

seriously, ever time the airlines eff up we are the ones scrambling.

arollins

3 days latter and still no follow up from OP I know its a Holiday season and everyone is busy, but if you are capable of asking for info on a problem, you are capable of checking the answers and following up as well. With new ticket purchased and son already at destination, there has been plenty of time to talk to someone at AA to sort this out, or at least for OP to provide some answer to the missing pieces. That last minute ticket purchased was certainly not on the cheap side.
1) ticket details, was this one ticket, or a combo of various tickets, where bought, paid or award
2) airlines being traveled and flight #
3) xmas gift of upgrade, relevant in that someone loss something of value to get the upgrade and did not received it back yet

Merry Christmas.

Antarius

I get my boarding passes printed at the airport. Mainly because I collect them, but also had a case where France did not stamp my passport and Germany was not super happy about having no record about my entry into the Schengen region.

AlwaysAisle

Ah, got it, thanks. That thought never came to my mind because during my teenage years and college years I was not privileged to have such kind offers from my folks.

Wonder then if an agent at SEA did incomplete work on upfare during the check-in. Past two to three years when I upfare international tickets or change reservation of international tickets by calling AAgent often an AAgent is not knowledgeable enough to know how that is done. Some AAgent will simply tell me it cannot be done on my ticket, some will quote full fare and tell me an upfare will be close to $3000 plus where cheaper fare is available when I look up AA.com, other time an AAgent did not send it to tariff department to complete ticketing change so my ticket just sat in limbo where it was CX who told me that ticket change information was received form AA but new ticket was not issued by AA and need to sort it out with AA then when I called AA after hanging up finally third agent figured out what was going on..

It is sad that many time I had to HUCA (hang up and call again) and after third or forth time I get an AAgent knew how to complete my request. I will not be surprised to see airport agents are like that too. Once on international flight out of DFW I got my upgrade request cleared at the gate but an gate agent did not know how to do miles+copay. Another gate agent came over and front of me telling the agent does not know how to do miles+copay that she has to know how to do that. Given that the boarding already started and gate agents must have been busy but in front of me such conversation between gate agents were taking place.

Wonder if an agent at SEA messed up upfare and during SEA-LAX flight the system cancelled the ticket completely. But then why agent at LAX could not reinstate when seats were available on original flights. Is it possible that an agent at LAX was also one of not so knowledgeable agent?

I don't know how other FTers experience past two or three years, but from my experience I will not be supervised if both agent at SEA and LAX messed up in this case.

QT31415

Sorry everyone, OP here. Been traveling over the holiday. I’ll try to get to all the questions.

Upgrade was done done at kiosk in airport upon check in. It was then verified with the agent while checking a bag. He actually printed out all the boarding passes again and gave them to my son.

In LAX, my son went to the help desk and was told that the only way he could fly on his original itinerary was to repurchase it. Reason for cancellation- NO show. Son showed them his boarding passes. Agent said son could go out and speak to the ticketing agents outside of security; they could probably fix the ticket. Lines were very long; there was a good chance that he would miss the connecting flight if he chose that option. Quickest option was to repurchase, which he did.

Other questions? I didn’t read through all the comments as I’m on my phone but will follow up once I get domestic again.

ChrL

A few options:
1. Take a photo whilst onboard. Bonus points if it is a selfie whilst holding today's newspaper and with the flight tracker on a screen in the background.
2. You could apply for a credit card whilst on the flight. Probably only works once.
3. Pay for something onboard by credit card - internet?

coolcoil

What happened with the checked bag? The tags should be strong evidence that your son was at least at the airport. And I would think that even though bag matching does not apply to domestic flights, they still have to pull the bag for a no-show.

NOTE: I don’t know the actual rules of domestic bag matching policy, so I could be wrong.

SJWarrior

Im still trying to figure out why, they can’t get it right. They never forget to charge us, lose our luggage, overbook or downgrade us when it’s convenient for them. Why is it our responsibility that they can’t get their $h!t together.

Often1

OP's answer seems to be that the agent with whom he first spoke at LAX accepted that the son had flown the segment. For whatever reason, that agent sent the son to a location outside security to reissue, but was able to resell the new ticket on the spot.

Given that it is LAX and that there is customer support airside (as well as a hopefully close AC as the son was ticketed in J), it is a fail to have placed him in the situation of having to leave security.

But, at least OP's follow up explains the entire issue of why the new ticket was sold.

In light of all of that, OP may wind up spending a lot of time on the phone, but ought to be able to have the original ticket reinstated and the new ticket fully refunded, particularly because the issue of "no show" appears to have been dealt with back at LAX.

As to keeping copies of BP's, that really is no longer proof of anything. Even if one has physical copies printed at a kiosk or by an agent, those are not proof of anything more than that one had a BP. While gate scanners do very rarely miss a BP (as can be seen in this thread, this is not an AA issue alone), it also seems that while it is a hassle, having the ticket reinstated is routine. In this case what happened was compounded by an agent who either did not know how to reinstate but did know how to sell and did not bother to ask for help.

Hopefully AA will issue some form of customer service gesture over and above the reinstatement and refund above.

arollins

I don't think this suggestion is a great idea with the recent problems regarding multiple sign ups, churning, and the like.

Often1

I also cannot imagine taking a hit to my credit score for some half-useful device such as this.

paperwastage

4. Pretend you are an aviation geek, bring a flight logbook and get the captain to fill it out & sign

Oh wait, we are on flyertalk, everyone's an aviation geek

mvoight

That was one thought I had, why they wanted him to go outside of security. Doesn't the Customer Service area airside at LAX handle ticketing issues?