flyaxa

This is a little convoluted and may belong in another forum, but here goes:
-I booked 5 tickets from AXA-SJU-CLT-BOS through Ulitmate Rewards and paid taxes with my CSR.
-AXA-SJU leg was on on Silver/Seaborne and the rest was on AA metal.
-Etickets were all 001 stock.
PART I
When we arrived at Wallblake/AXA we were informed that the flight to SJU was cancelled. In the ensuing minutes I checked our itineraries on AA.com and saw we had been rebooked on a flight from SXM-SJU, leaving in less than two hours. It was up to us to get over to SXM. I quickly jumped over to the Anguilla Air Services desk and booked an immediate charter to SXM for our group of 5 and 3 other passengers who were in the same situation (Charter was one price so xtra passengers was not an issue.) We made it to SXM in time for our flight to SJU. End of PART I.
PART II
In CLT, due to mechanical issues, our 10:00PM flight departure was delayed until 11:30PM, and then 01:30AM, and finally until 07:00AM. When I heard the final delay, I immediately booked two rooms at the airport Hampton Inn.

THE QUESTION: How do I go about seeking any sort of compensation for the charter and hotel rooms? AA? Seaborne? Ultimate Rewards? Submit to CSR for travel insurance?

Mods: Not sure if this should be here or Chase forum or other??

ijgordon

AA should pay for the hotel in CLT, no issue, submit a complaint/request through their website.
The charter might be trickier, especially if it was $$$, and I'm confused about what flight was operated by whom and what was canceled; your second bullet refers to AXA-SXM. Travel insurance usually insists you contact them before making alternative arrangements, though I understand time was quite limited. AA might say the same.

JJeffrey

Yikes, sounds like quite an eventful travel day, glad your quick thinking was able to at least get you most of the way home on the same day.

Easy part: for the AA mechanical delay, send AA a complaint through the online contact form at aa.com. Say your flight was delayed due to mechanical reasons, you had $XXX in expenses for hotel and taxi and need reimbursement.

Hard part: the charter expense, since the first cancelled flight wasn't AA, and you booked it though Chase, AA most likely isn't going to offer anything. If you have travel protection through your credit card this seems like where I'd start first.

Often1

OP - Please go back to your post and review the routing. The two parts of your post do not match up and that is confusing. What was your exact original routing with carrier for each segment. What was your final routing with carrier, understanding that one segment was via charter?

As to the delay at CLT, AA will treat this a bit differently and it may not matter depending on cost. If you were refused a hotel voucher for whatever reason, it will reimburse reasonable costs. If you declined what was offered, it will generally reimburse its local hotel costs (which are significantly below market).

AA ought to also reimburse you for reasonable meals and local transport costs at CLT.

flyaxa

Thanks all! Apologies, that was a typo in the second point. I edited it to the correct AXA-SJU original routing flown by Seaborne (which is transitioning to Silver Air) We were re-routed with a departure point at SXM (not AXA). Thankfully the charter was only $500.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I'm assuming any transportation costs involved transitioning from one airport to another would need to be agreed upon by AA (or maybe Seaborne) ahead of time. In this case there was no time to contact AA (or Seaborne) and ask whether transit costs would be reimbursed or inquire about other flight arrangements. At least the OP was able to split the cost of the Charter between other paxs although I'm sure it wasn't cheap.

erik123

That is very cheap! I would be surprised AA wouldn't refund the $500 or at the very least provide a voucher in the same amount. I have received $100 er passenger for much less. My suggestion is to use the wbe from and attach the receipt.

flyaxa

Yeah there was not much time to ask questions/get approvals as despite things improving at SXM, it is nowhere near pre-hurricane operations. We had to collect our bags and recheck in SXM and there were considerable tarmac delays due to all the private jets. The other passengers offered to pay, but it wasn't that much and I was going to pay it regardless so I offered as a gift to them. I'm not sure what all the rest of passengers did but I had a slight advantage of having lived in AXA for over 45 years.

JJeffrey

The issue is it was Seaborne that cancelled the first flight, not AA, so AA really has no obligation here.

If anything you might try and get Seaborne to refund the $500, at least as a start, although as things typically go in the Caribbean I can see this being quite an arduous process.

Often1

AA has nothing to do with the charter. It neither scheduled, operated, or cancelled the flight causing the delay.

BB is very unlikely to reimburse the cost of the charter. Once you use self-help, it becomes a consequential damage and is not covered. You may certainly try, but expect nothing.

It is possible that your travel insurance will cover some or all of this if you make the case that flying as rerouted by BB would have caused a misconnect and thus various other expenses at SJU. Do not hold your breath.

Finally, you are entitled to a refund of the value of the cancelled segment. For that, you contact AA. It is unclear to me how that refund is made given the form of payment, but it will certainly go smoother if you can use an AA voucher.

jordyn

There was no cancelled segment. AA rebooked OP from AXA-SJU to SXM-SJU, although apparently without bothering to tell anyone.

I do think that between AA and BB there's some responsibility for, at a minimum, failing to communicate the cancellation and routing change to anyone since with more notice OP and other travelers could have taken cheaper transportation between the islands, but that's from a purely theoretical point of view and unlikely to result in any actual redress for OP since I'm sure the airlines will just end up pointing fingers at each other or disclaiming responsibility entirely. Best bet is definitely to start with travel insurance, although this situation may fall into a gap that's not strictly covered.

flyaxa

I think BB might be my first try (if I even decide to bother with this) The Seaborne staff in AXA were as in-the-dark as the rest of us. Standing at the desk I got an email from Chase that the flight from AXA-SJU was cancelled. I then checked my AA app and saw the rebooking. Seaborne staff was just seeing this as well on their computer. Everyone asked how we were supposed to get to SXM and I felt sorry for the BB staff because they had no clue either. There was no way we were getting down to Blowing Point to the ferry over to Marigot and taxi to SXM in time for the flight. And there were no scheduled flights.

In the mean time, we did all just now receive emails giving us all 8K miles for the CLT-BOS delay. Seems easy enough however, to submit the hotel costs for it. We didn't have any other transport or food costs.

durberville

Since your trip was international in scope, the Montreal Convention applies. If the cancellation was due to something within the carrier's control (e.g. not weather) you can almost certainly be reimbursed for the charter cost pursuant to Article 19 of the convention.

Antarius

AXA-SJU was canceled, albeit that wasn't on AA.

I'm still surprised that AA would rebook someone to a different airport on a different island that belongs to a different country. Seems there is something else to this story. I could see AA rebooking someone from JFK to LGA, not from JFK to YUL instead.

flyaxa

We were surprised too However, I'm not sure that AA actually did change it. I think it was BB. Two of the folks that hopped on our charter were only booked AXA-SJU through Silver/Seaborne directly and they were changed as well. We originally had a 4 hour layover in SJU so maybe BB thought they could make the switch.