Any compensation for changed routing (and downgrade) on award flight?
 

Back in November family had 'U' award ticket from YYZ to LAX. (Note I was not on this itinerary, but used my miles to book it, so, family had no 'status' other than the 'U' ticket itself).

Original routing was as follows:
YYZ -> PHL on AA4887 depart at 9:14 AM. This is a single cabin flight (which played out much to my detriment later on it appears)
PHL -> LAX depart 12:50 PM. Since this was 2 cabin, this segment obviously in the front.

Apparently 24 hours prior to departure robo-call tells me that 4887 is canceled due to weather (although 4864 which flies same route and departs only 70 minutes later had not been canceled -- nice how they can predict weather like this so exactly 24 hours in advance), and they've been re-booked on:

YYZ->DFW departing at 6:30 PM in Y connecting
DFW->LAX in U (thankfully), arriving 11:40 PM

Don't really want to get into the ugly details of trying to get through on the 'gold line' (yeah, I know there really isn't a gold line) when I noted that 4864 still had unsold inventory (and would have still allowed legal connection to original connecting flight), but, that changed after being on hold for 2 hours... (and no, couldn't change it online because aa.com was insisting to put entire itinerary in Y, including original connecting flight at PHL). So. Enough on this. That day is long gone, back to the question of compensation...

AA insists that since original itinerary had YYZ->PHL in Y (obviously since it's single cabin) and PHL->LAX in 'U', that I'm entitled to ZERO refund/compensation for my family being put in Y on the YYZ->DFW segment (where U was available, or rather they were still selling revenue J at the time) because I only booked in Y (ok, to be more accurate I should say 'T') on my first segment.

Honestly, I'm not looking for a kings ransom here, I'd just like someone at AA to acknowledge that flying 1,199 miles in economy followed by 1,235 miles in business is NOT the same as taking a short hop of 347 miles in single cabin economy followed by 2,402 miles business. They seem to think they gave me an even trade (to say nothing about arriving 8 hours later which I didn't even bother bringing up with them) and I'm entitled to nothing other than 'sorry about the weather' (that they nailed down to a 70 minute window 24 hours in advance).

To add further insult to injury, on the YYZ->DFW flight, no complementary MCE was offered, AND, they were given boarding group 9.

Ultimately, it was a flight that cost only 25,000 miles (x3), but, I (and my family) would never have used 25K miles for YYZ->DFW (T) followed by only DFW->LAX (U). The YYZ->PHL (T) followed by PHL->LAX (U) was acceptable (and was the one we had booked). I'm not even looking for them to refund the entire 12,500 miles difference between U and T, since I know 'half' of what was originally expected did end up in U. But, I do think something is in order. Is it really right for them to offer me the one sided solution on day of travel and completely ignore the difference in value (subjective as it is) and then to unilaterally tell me that I've already been made whole ?

Who have you been contacting at AA? That is definitely a garbage response. I would just reply back that you were on a business award but the original first flight was operated by Eagle with no F, and ask specifically for half the difference of the one flight in coach equal to 3x 6250 miles.

I would send a short --- stress, massively shorter than the OP -- to AA, focusing on only the relevant detail. Leave out your views on meteorology and inventory control as they won't move AA.

AA will not issue a refund here and none is due. But, it may well issue a customer service gesture which is likely to be in the 3-5K mile range and that seems fair under the circumstances.

I would also say this is something that is probably best handled by AAdvantage Account Service rather than AA Customer Relations.