Reservation cancelled; even AA does not know why
 

I booked JFK/LAX/PDX a couple of months ago. Just now, I received an email saying my trip was cancelled.

AA1 is still bookable so I know flight itself wasn’t cancelled. AA chat support doesn’t know why my reservation was cancelled. Im still on hold with them.

I guess I can rebook but why would this have happened? What if I rebook and it happens again?

If you have data points, I’m very interested to hear them. Thank you!

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...39ac3a60d4.png

From your image was an award. Did the credit card payment for the taxes, etc get processed? Checked your credit card statement?

AA1 arrives at 10:50 am and AA's only LAX-PDX flight leaves at 11:13 - the connection is not legal.

Good call on checking credit card. But no, $5.60 refund hasn’t hit yet. I will keep an eye out.

AA6251 LAX/PDX leaves 12:13 PM so that should be legal, right? Anyway flights 1 and 6251 are still being sold by AA now.

I just hope they return the miles back soon so I can rebook. And the bigger worry (because I don’t know why AA cancelled it in the first place) is what if they cancel it again..

Dates weren’t provided but there are still later flights on the schedule, such as 6244 departing at 1:53p which would be legal if operating that day.

Even if it wasn’t operating the day OP is traveling, a schedule change that results in an illegal connection should not result in a cancelled itinerary.

Have you received the e-ticket? Payment may have failed. A PNR is not a ticket.

The agent is saying to use a different form of payment with matching photo id at the airport.

Were the taxes paid with your CC? I remember reading somewhere that the name on the CC has to match the name on the FF account. This prevents people from selling miles.

Is there something missing from this story?

Did the original charge ever post?

Per the original post, he only got the mail that the trip was cancelled just now. A refund will take at least 2 days to hit the card.

I'm asking about the original charge for taxes, etc., not the refund. I'm curious if the transaction failed to go through and that's why the ticket was cancelled.

I think the key words are "different form of payment and matching photo ID at the airport". Something about your CC likely triggered a corporate security flag, e.g., suspicion of selling miles as VegasGambler suggested. When you rebook, they will be looking closely at whether the reservation is legitimate. In AA world, you can consider yourself lucky that they did not jump to shutting down your account, and that the award space is still available.

I'm updating this thread with a data point in case someone finds themselves in similar boat. Some of the comments here indeed got me nervous. The award reservation was made from my aunt's AAdvantage account. Our family routinely books flights for each other from whoever has miles available at time when travel is needed. I thought we were being flagged for this activity. For my upcoming travel, it was my aunt who "splurged" and used miles in her account. Problem was she was 8000 miles short of the flight I needed to take. So I transferred miles from my account to hers. This cost me $90, I think. So with my aunt's account "full", she was able to book an award flight for me.

Many weeks later, here comes the dunce that I am. I was going through my credit card statements and noticed an unfamiliar $90 charge to AA. And yes, I did the unthinkable- I contested with the credit card company. And that started a whole avalanche of events. The credit card company honored my dispute and reversed the charge. Well, AA understandably responded with cancelling my trip because my aunt's miles stash would have been 8000 miles short. Somehow, this also caused my aunt's AA account to be locked. It's been unlocked since then and miles returned.

All this was explained to my aunt by Corporate Security or Security Corporate or something like that. So now, my aunt has been made whole. But I don't think we will be traveling on award for a while as this got us spooked. I'll be booking my same flight in cash- but we're still a little paranoid now. We read that 63 page Flyertalk post about AA fraud a few days ago and had been asking ourselves if our miles-sharing proclivity was the cause. Turned out it wasn't, but boy- what an experience..

Thank you for updating us with what happened. Hope your trip ends up uneventful.

Why on earth would you contest a charge without trying to figure out how it was generated with the vendor??

I give you credit for your honesty in this post. It may sound harsh, but I suggest thinking about whether you have fully taken responsibility yet. I assume you understand that this was a serious mistake you made, and you are lucky not to have further consequences and lucky that only $90 was at stake (but probably more than $90 in people's time was wasted as well). In the end, did you ever repay the $90 you owed?

Both the CC company and AA could take the viewpoint that you filed a fraudulent dispute since you should have known you authorized the charge. AA Corporate Security is serious and now has you on its radar. I know we are all human, but in this situation I would feel compelled to send the CC company and AA a formal apology and acknowledgment of being entirely at fault for this issue. You may say they're companies without feelings and whoever reads it won't care, but I'd do it for the peace of mind and for the chance that the person you reach will be refreshed by your honesty and humility and possibly put something in your file to balance the bad behavior they already know you committed (disputing a charge you should have known was valid). We know that in other scenarios AA Corporate Security appreciates honesty.