The last 5 segments I've been on, there has been a delay of at least one hour. Very disappointing. A friend of mine (Exec Plat) claims he's gotten quite a few consolation points by submitting complaints to Customer Care. So I've sent off a few messages to them myself, but I have yet to receive a reply. Can I expect any points from these efforts? Note: I'm a lowly Platinum (as of today!).

Yes, it works. But you need to be clear about how the delays affected you and what it cost. For example, you missed a meeting and thus you have to make another trip to meet the client, which will cost you another $xx in airfare. I�d also be judicious in how often you play that card. You don�t want to be know as a serial complainer always looking for handouts.

The Rabbi Ginsberg found out the hard way when Northwestern fired him for making too many claims. Unfortunatly for him SCOTUS backed the airline.


There are delays and there are delays. Are they annoying? Yes they are but many delays aren't the airlines fault such as weather.

Being a serial complainer over minor issues means when you really have a serious complaint you might find the airline is less than sympathetic.

The only way AA gets my feedback is when they send a survey following a flight.

I also don�t want to be flagged as a serial complainer. In addition, 5000 - 10,000 miles is worthless to me. I value my time more than anything and unfortunately no amount of compensation gets that back.

Operationally AA was stellar a year ago (in my experience). Now they�re back to mediocrity. Yesterday I thought I was so clever when I changed to an earlier flight. Only to be delayed due to crew availability and not arriving until AFTER my originally scheduled flight.

To play devil's advocate, if you don't ever ask for concessions from AA, who cares if they flag you as a serial complainer?

Because if you do it too much for what they perceive as minor issues they can and will just shut your account down with the loss of your miles and status.

Does complaining ever work? It depends on your purpose.

If you complain in hope for actual improvement, it rarely works or takes a long time. But if the sole purpose is goodwill gesture, then depending on the airline's policy, it usually works.

However goodwill gesture is not without its limitation. So if the issue is trivia, don't bother.

Actually, SCOTUS did not rule on Ginsberg's problem with pmNW. Instead, SCOTUS ruled that Ginberg's contractual claim must be dismissed by the ADA preemption.

Yes. But in practical terms, that affirmed the airline's ability to make such moves unilaterally.

Also for context for other readers who may have taken a second for it to click - ADA is the Airline Deregulation Act (1978) and not the common parlance ADA relating to disability.

It did no. Instead, SCOTUS deferred the problem to DOT. Whether DOT has worked on this would be beyond my knowledge.

It does work. I just don't over do it. I normally fill out the surveys but once I did complain to AA about my seat in F not able to recline it back to a normal position as it was a safety Hazzard. The FA tried to help me when we were going to take off and it didn't work. They gave me 12k miles.

Wow, it sure didn't work for me recently, and I thought I had a valid complaint. I had to have surgery just before I had AA airfare already booked. I followed AA guidelines and provided them with an explanation and a letter from my physician stating that I shouldn't be flying during that time. Just got the word this morning that they are declining my request, so my $3,000 first class airfare just went out the window. Will never set foot on AA again. (Oh...and I've never filed a complaint before)

AA does carefully track complaints submitted by each passenger. If you are CK or EXP, unless you are complaining left and right for no reason, AA will listen and issue compensation accordingly. All other tiers are going to get canned responses once they are flagged as chronic complainers.

YMMV but generally legitimate gripes will be met with some form of compensation. I've certainly let AA hear it when an issue within their control resulted in some significant inconvenience for me--I recall once a TPAC flight went MX and left me with a day's delay, and on another occasion an arrival got parked at a gate without deboarding for well over an hour because someone on ground ops had taken the jetway key home with them (it was the last arrival of the day). Both got 10k miles compensation, if I recall. Granted, I was EXP at the time, but I reckon if AA's bungles cost you a measurable chunk of your life, you'll probably be taken seriously; persistently complaining about the amount of ice in the drinks or weather delays wouldn't be a winning strategy.

[Aside--got a very puzzled response from a phone agent when I joked that my Helix score must've been pretty high after another cancellation followed closely on the heels of the TPAC mentioned above.]

Isn't a F ticket refundable?

I purchased the ticket in 2020 and didn't re-book within a year...that's their rationalization for the denied compensation...