apeortdz

Is it possible that the OP booked a flight to DFW with AA and a separate booking on a different airline to the Philippines? If so, the Baltimore agent would be unaware of forward travels.

LondonElite

The third paragraph of the OP makes clear that this was not the case.

deeruck

It would surely be fair to refund the cost of tickets that the OP purchased at BWI, due to the misinterpretation of the rules by AA. I think everyone agrees they should have been stopped at BWI, not charged for a ticket they would not be able to use.

roadtriper

First , I too am sorry for the Op's Loss, been through it with both Parents and In-laws
"We weren't Shocked, It was a long Illness" then the Op had plenty of time to get things in order, and keep track of travel restrictions etc.! I get the feeling their "research" started after the news of the fathers passing.
Fact is... in this year we call 2020, Most people have not been able have Proper Funerals for loved ones and even see them or be with them before passing. I just lost a Brother in law,he spent a week or more in the Hospital dying (not Covid), my Sister and his Adult kids couldn't go in to Visit him. he was 2 miles away, but might as well been half way around the world. (they were escorted in to be with him in his last minutes on this earth) But he's home sitting on a bookshelf until such time they can have a proper Funeral. These aren't Normal times !
The Op came here to Vent, as I'm sure he needed (needs) to do! and AA is the Easy Target, But I can't lay this one on AA! except as others have stated they shouldn't have been able to start the journey in the first place! RT

LondonElite

Why should the airline refund the ticket just because the traveller couldn't get his documentation in order? They should have been stopped at BWI to avoid the inconvenience, but I don't see why the airline should refund the ticket just because they couldn't use it.

carlosdca

OP:Perhaps you are used to other situations where a terrible and sad personal circumstance causes people to be sympathetic and bend the rules for you.
Perhaps you need to understand that visa and passport requirements are the one thing that AA agents can't be flexible with.
Any airline agents would have done exactly the same.

One thing I don't understand is how come OP was paged at D23? Do they page everybody? How did AA's systems know there was something wrong with the OP's docs if BWI had actually ok'd the docs?

MSPeconomist

My *guess* is that the wife was a citizen (or national) of the Philippines, but did not have a current passport as she was naturalized as a longterm USA resident and spouse of a USA citizen. The BWI GA allowed her to "prove" Philippines citizenship/nationality by documenting that she had been born in the Philippines. It's not clear whether these same documents were shown to the GA who denied boarding. If so, then the husband would be permitted to board also as a spouse of a national (or citizen) of the Philippines. Alternatively (second best), only the wife would have been allowed to travel as the child of a Phillippines national.

It's not clear whether the OP and wife had shown these documents to the later GA and explained the logic of how their situation was one of the exceptions to the rules.

BTW, it always shocks me when people advocate going to the USA State Department website (or by extension toUSA embassies and consulates) for details about current access rules for USA citizens entering foreign countries. IMO the State Department webpages on this should have been removed a long time ago as they are frequently downright wrong (or more, charitably, simplified and out of date).

DMPHL

This doesn't completely surprise me. I've had my documents checked/confirmed before at my origin airport and the international gateway. It's entirely possible that in the current climate with travel restrictions as severe as they are, the system flagged reservations of US passport holders on certain itineraries for another document check. I imagine AA agents at major international gateways have more experience interpreting and enforcing IATA guidelines than those at smaller outstations.

Often1

It's important to separate sympathy for OP's personal loss from the reality of air travel and international documentation requirements.

AA does not check documents for the passenger, but for its own protection. There are routine complaints about AA and other carriers for having checked documents and denied boarding at a domestic origin point when there is no documentation requirement for the domestic segment. Thus, can't have it both ways.

Bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with asking AA to recalculate the ticket (I am not sure I understand why the return to BWI was an even exchange for DFW-INC-CRK-(XXX)-BWI, but I suspect that an agent at a gate isn't capable of that, but that AA can send the e-ticket for review. The difference between fare paid and the return to BWI ought to be refunded to the original form of payment. Alternatively, and it is a long-shot, OP could ask for a refund of the entire ticket as a pure customer service gesture. But, that means a shift in OP's approach from blaming AA to accepting that what happened to him has nothing to do with AA. I doubt that AA will refund the entire ticket, but it is an option to ask,

warakorn

It is hard to believe that the wife left her Filipino passport at home.
How else do you prove citizenship - than with a passport?
Not knowing enough about the law in the Philipinnes, but usually citizens of one country must use this countrys passport to enter it.

I think the AA agents at spoke cities (without any AA-operated international flights) are less trained and aware of immigration rules.
Hence, it makes sense to leave the final decision to the gate staff at the international gateway airport (here it is DFW).
During that pandemic (alongside the various travel bans against US ciitzens) you can be sure that AA agents at those gateway cities are on high alert, because (as this thread shows) not all US citizens seem to be aware of the various travel bans.

And it is better for the OP to be denied boarding in his home country (DFW), than being denied boarding in Seoul. Can you imagine the rant if OZ/PR/KE agents refused him and her boarding in Seoul?
What then? How would they get back home to the US? I believe the airline at Seoul would have even been more stricter in checking documents, because seats are spare (cut capacity) and they would have been on the hook for serious fines by the Philippines authorities.

I think we have a case here of very inexperienced travellers. Just the idea to try to phone the US consulate in Manila (or Clark, if there is one), is a futile exercise. It is impossible to get hold of anyone at an US consulate in a country that is relatively poor, but has a track record of immense immigration flows towards the US.

enviroian

OP please come back to address questions and feedback.

AA100k

With all the Covid-19 travel restrictions in effect worldwide, it’s almost impossible to comprehend that the OPs entry/document issues would not have been known to the first agent. The worldwide virus crisis notwithstanding, I travel internationally twice monthly year round and I am always vetted for documents at the first leg of any trip. My sympathies are with the OP.

ashill

I hope the OP will, but I also think it was clear from the original post that this was not asking for feedback or advice; the OP was simply sharing a negative experience in the hopes that it would be useful for others. I have enormous sympathy for the OP, even though it's clear that AA did nothing wrong except a) allow the OP to board the plane in BWI in the first place and b) have unsympathetic customer service agents (both of which are very real and serious failures on AA's part).

And frankly, there's really not much to be done or learned by the OP at this point. I sincerely hope that they will not have a parent die on the other side of the planet during COVID again. The only possibility is that his wife is a Filipino citizen, in which case she'd probably need to get that documented and get a Filipino passport, which presumably take considerable time (but would make it possible to travel out to the Philippines in several months to visit with surviving family members without the pressure of a trip planned on zero notice). Given that, the OP has far more important things to do right now than worry any further about why they weren't able to travel for the funeral or what a bunch of strangers on the Internet say. I wish them the best working through this difficult time.

Often1

For the benefit of others and having nothing to do with the pandemic, it is always important to check TIMATIC for one's specific journey. It is available without fee through a number of portals and it is what your carrier will rely on. Citizenship, residency, origin, destination, transit points, and where one has recently traveled, may all affect admissibility.

This is not a matter of your elite status, your class of service or how much you spend on tickets.

During the pandemic this is even more important. Admissibility requirements sometimes change on little or no notice and these may include requirements which have not existed in the past, including negative Covid tests, specific forms, and similar. There may also be quarantine requirements which do not directly affect admissibility but which may render the trip useless.

To be clear, it is always 100% the responsibility of the passenger to have all necessary documents in their possession. Air carriers only check documents to avoid their own enforcement risk. While the carrier and passenger interest may converge, it is ultimately the passenger who is denied boarding or entry and thus in the passenger's interest to double and triple check before booking and then again regularly between ticketing and departure.

DMPHL

Yea, and it's entirely understandable. Questions of responsibility aside, it may just be relatively inexperienced travelers (compared to a lot of people who travel internationally all the time), in a personally stressful and emotionally freighted situation having lost a loved one, in the midst of a global situation that has resulted in confusing and unusual sets of restrictions, all compounding.