Well, I think the point was (or should have been!) that if OLCI fails, you should get to the airport earlier than normal in case there are problems.
Of course much of the time, particularly on international, a failed OLCI doesn't indicate anything more serious, but at least you'd know to be better safe than sorry.

Yes, but as you said a failed OLCI for international travel is common and almost always indicates a simple document check and won't trigger much alarm or need for early arrival at the airport. Unless of course you are the OP in the future....

When I check in online for my typical LHR-PHL flights, I almost always am unable to complete the process. Sometimes on the morning-of-the-flight, it does let me check in. I don't fret about it anymore.

Bingo. That is the point.

Whether London or Garden City; why wouldn't you check in as your window to do so opens? At least you know if you might have a problem.

Then there is Point B. The boarding pass in your hand is still your friend and might just save you. I've walked past the frustrated crowd to the gate when the kiosks at the airport were down and nobody could check in on site. Once or twice. They didn't hold the plane. I boarded and went home.

I've also boarded twice when the readers were down at the gate. If you had paper they took it and you got on. Twice. Would they still do that? I don't know.

My third actually happened to me story. I checked in from a phone on a moving bus going back to London from Stonehenge. Very slowly. The day before. Poor connection. But it worked. Much to my amazement that got us far enough up the Upgrade List to sit in the front instead of steerage. Sometimes the seats go to the stubborn. Or maybe it is to the obsessive-compulsive.

The issue is that AA.com and the app are notoriously unreliable. OLCI for an international trip works for me less than 50% of the time and with partner airlines even less so.

There's never been any issue other than AA having lousy legacy IT systems.

I had an AA award ex ORD with 2 AALegs and two QR legs. Absolutely no way, no how was AA going to let me complete OLCI. Not for lack of trying either. Departure at 6AM. We reached the counter at 4:15. And it took the agent over an hour to get us checked in and boarding passes issued. No issues with IT or the tickets or anything. It just took her that long to decipher all the stuff in Timatic and check stacks of paperwork. Then she messed something up and had to start all over. Net effect, we walked up to the gate at 540.

Lesson learned. I’ll always look twice to find the priority check in desks instead of the first open general desk.

I don’t know if this is what happened to you or not, but…. I FF to STT. We have to go through Customs to leave even though it’s a territory. American is always very clear that you have to be checked in 90 minutes before departure. I’ve also been told we are supposed to clear customs 90 minutes before. But they don’t check that part. I’m sorry that happened to you.

just recently for SFO-JFK-MAD I could not OCLI from my Macbook, but was able to do it using the Android app on my Samsung phone.
weird....

I wonder if the error message is different if the OLCI "failure" is just because of a document check or something else?

It's not limited to AA. My lifetime international OLCI success rate on UA is 0%.

Converseky my check in success with UA recently was 100% - with all the Covid requirements too

The UA mobile application allowed for scanning and recording of passport and from the website able to upload RAT result and check in and get boarding pass for SYD-LAX . the LAX-ORD was no issue , nor was the ORD-LHR sector

Yes, congratulations. You've discovered that the curves aren't generally linear.

That's actually the opposite of what I was saying. My point was that even if the airlines managed to successfully pass on 100% of the cost, it would still be a good deal for consumers.

Right, I "discovered" something I pointed out at the start.

lol

Why would I want to pay an extra $6/flight for insurance that I get from multiple credit cards? If people want insurance, they can buy insurance.

These situations are quite rare. I don't think paying IDB in cases like this would increase fares by six dollars per passenger. This may be the case in Europe as airlines are on the hook for mechanical delays which I don't favor.

The rules need to change so that IDB is payable to any passenger who is lawfully entitled to board the flight by: paying for ticket, checking in on time, being fit for travel and having the required documents. As long as the flights is not canceled the passenger should have been boarded somehow, perhaps by getting authorisation from a higher up at the airline. No payout for any other reason though; that's what insurance is for.

Interesting. Why?

I understand that things like weather, ATC etc. are outside of an airline's control, but maintenance most certainly is.