AlwaysAisle

This is another downside of buying two separate tickets. For you it is middle of the journey trying to get home, but as far as an airline is concerned your "home" is Washington, D.C. area.

USFlyerUS

I'm not sure that matters. You weren't on the return trip of an AA roundtrip. I mentioned up thread I've had this same situation on other carriers. It's a downside of booking separate PNRs or one ways on separate carriers.

If you had booked this as an open jaw ticket all on AA, he would have readily given you a hotel voucher.

BobOscar

This happened in 2019 - at DFW - almost 24 hour delay... AA offered nothing. Flight from DFW to JAX (5pm flight) (my connection from SAN) cancelled. Rebooked on an 8pm flight. That one was also cancelled. The flight about 10pm kept getting delayed. Finally cancelled around midnight. Rebooked for something like 10am the next day. When I tried to check-in from my hotel the next morning that was cancelled too. Rebooked on a connection through Miami at something like 3PM. That was the only flight(s) with any availability. I check on my phone while I'm eating lunch at the airport, a seat popped up on the non-stop to JAX at about 3pm and I grabbed that.

As far as hotel, NOTHING from AA for what was almost a 24-hour delay. And it was a ..... to get a hotel room after midnight since on-line or app, everyone thought you wanted a room for the following night. Finally had to do it by phone.

steveholt

For situations like this, I've found the HotelTonight app to be helpful - I've been able to book same-day rooms after midnight there.

Stripe

You don't include the cause of the delays. If it was a weather event in DFW or JAX then those kinds of cancellations are par for the course, and AA would not reimburse for a hotel no matter how long the delay becomes.

When I'm in the OP's situation I almost never line up to get an AA provided hotel. As noted above they are frequently dumps or far away or both. Just take care of yourself and save receipts and then work back through customer service. In the worst case, AA says no but you will have maximized your sleep and be out a relatively small amount of money in the great scheme of things. If that's too risky then get insurance, either via your CC or directly.

boerne

this is optimal. My CSR took several months to reimburse a trip cancellation, but they came through for 16000+. This information tells me I need to book IRROPS hotels on my AMEX plt for the next 10 months since I am near the max for CSR.

Karmadilly

AA is my bane (cause of distress). Recently on an early a.m. flight from Ft Walton Beach, Fl, to JFK, AA had no pilot crew show up to fly the plane due to freezing the prior night. I sat all day waiting for AA to confirm when a Pilot would arrive after being told by AA that they were working on it. [oh, you bet!]. No pilot ever arrived, so at 6 pm, I asked a ticket agent to rebook. I had to talk and talk to the AA ticket agent, who didn't seem to understand me, or else she was holding back from rebooking my flight. After about 20-minutes, I was getting tired when she told me, 'OK, I can reboot your ticket now.' I found out why. She told me I had to say that I chose to rebook my flight before she could rebook it. I had paid for First class, but I flew economy the next morning, and I was glad to go. AA made no offer of a hotel, transportation back home or to a hotel, or meals. The next day I wrote to AA to say that the service was poor and unacceptable. Guess What -- AA did not reply. As it turns out, the decision I made not to fly on AA 30 years ago still holds true today.

ijgordon

There’s a lot of fine print, notably they only reimburse for a specific set of covered reasons, and I’m pretty sure crew time out isn’t one. It’s usually stuff that the airline *won’t* reimburse for, like weather and I think ATC. Regardless you have to provide support for the covered reason. You also have to be on a round trip itinerary on a common carrier - if OP took Amtrak from NYC to DC that would probably work, but if they drove, the claim would likely be rejected. (A bit of a sneak, but the purpose is to ensure they’re not paying out for your hotel in your home city.)

Despite a lot of people posting on FT “that’s what travel insurance is for”, it isn’t always 100% true and it’s not a panacea.

PES_B1

I would book a hotel and clam for a reimbursement with my insurance provider.

hotturnip

While this agent was technically correct (because of the one-way ticket), this is horrible customer service. I would definitely complain. You may not get anything, but at least register the complaint.

travelingdrsuz

With Chase cards with travel coverage, I believe you only have to book part of the trip with the card. Thankfully I have not had to use mine yet, but this is why I use it. In fact, I don't use my AA cards for tickets because they don't have coverage, which is sad.

Antarius

16k, you're probably using trip interruption or cancelation, not trip delay right? Usually my trip delay totals are 400 bucks.

Never had to spread them out, but yes, definitely worth keeping max coverage in mind.

Crews don't typically time out on their own. It's MX, WX or something that leads to it. I've never had any issues with a delay claim that was due to a one of the above reasons, including crew timeout.

cmtlatitudes

Last January I had a miserable three + hour ordeal at MIA. Flight landed mid evening but after the last available flight to DCA had departed. Was staying at the airport hotel before departing to DCA on first flight of the next morning.

Picked up by wheelchair assistance without issue. However, over the next three hours, was ferried from attendant to attendant, made to leave the wheelchair multiple times and wait wherever this happened to occur - gate chair, bench in a deserted hallway, - with no real explanations other than that they needing to take care of higher priority passengers requiring a wheelchair. Another attendant would come, wheel me a few minutes, make me depart to a bench, wait, rinse and repeat. Of course, I'm not happy with this, being on a paid F ticket. (Who are all these higher priority passengers?)

Finally, the last assistant was frank with me about what was occurring. I did not have a connecting flight that evening and was hence a lessor priority than any passenger arriving after me that have a connecting flight. His words were, almost verbatim: "Our highest priority guidance is to ensure a connecting passenger who would be eligible for a hotel voucher never needs one. We are graded on it."

thelark

Horrible to see how bad this has gotten because my last experience (maybe 3 yr ago) went really well. EXP in F traveling with my wife LGA-DFW diverted to HOU for weather at DFW. Before we even got off the plane we were rebooked for the next morning and had a room at the nearby Hilton, which Hilton even upgraded to a nice suite.

Antarius

Basically if your flight is delayed > 6 hours or overnight, they will cover reasonable expenses up to x amount. (the specifics are on the amex website under benefits for trip delay). I've used it many times when a flight is delayed at a hub or coming back from a trip. There is some fine print, but largely speaking it covers most normal situations.

Interesting. I've never had good experiences with AA with regards to hotels. Even traveling internationally in J as an EXP/CK, it's been a lousy hotel or no hotel.

UA seems to do a much much better job (words I can not believe I am saying) - my cousin, aunt and uncle were diverted resulting in 23 hours in HNL and despite no UA status and being in the back with pets, they were put up in a nice hotel on Waikiki beach. Another friend has a flight go MX on UA and similarly got a nice hotel.