TomWinMD

Hello All,

In Jan 2020 I purchased two first class round trip tickets for coast to coast flights (BWI to SEA). The pandemic hit and I chose to cancel the tickets. I lost track of the tickets and their cancellation due to some life events and computer issues.

On Wednesday, while doing some flight research for an upcoming vacation, I remembered the cancelled tickets and contacted American to see what had become of them - flight credit, etc.

I was informed by the polite ticketing agent on the phone that the opportunity for credit had passed.

What follows is the response from AA Customer Relations I received to my customer complaint submission on Wednesday (3/22) and my response to them this morning.

I'm sharing it for your awareness as AA customers to include in your decision process to use AA's service or not.

Your comments and thoughts on it are welcome.

The exchange below is lightly edited for format (e.g. I can't post the hyperlink to my reference in the forum yet) and to protect privacy.

Tom

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American's response to my web submitted complaint.


March 23, 2023



Hello Thomas:

Thank you for contacting American Airlines regarding your expired ticket. Although this will likely be disappointing to learn, we are not extending the validity period for tickets that were previously extended under our travel notices.

Our tickets normally expire one year from the original date of issue and are nontransferable, meaning they cannot be used for anyone other than the named passenger. Nevertheless, if your ticket qualified under our Covid Extension, we offered flexibility which required the ticket to be rebooked by September 30, 2022, for travel to be completed before the end of 2022. While we regret that you were unable to use your ticket value within our extended booking period, we are not offering any further extensions or exceptions for these tickets.

Thomas, please know that although we're not providing further ticketing extensions, we value your feedback and appreciate that you reached out to us. We look forward to the opportunity to welcome you on board an American Airlines flight again in the future.



Sincerely,



Tanya E.

Customer Relations

American Airlines

AA Ref#1-32674382054


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My response to American this morning


Good Morning Tanya,

I appreciate the prompt response to my complaint/request.

Yes, I am disappointed.

I would have hoped that a simple, less than $2,000 credit (not a refund) would have been easy to provide for an Airline whose net operating income in 2022, by its own reporting1, was $1.6 billion dollars with a net income of $127 million dollars.

Restoring this comparatively small credit would have resulted in the purchase in two first-class international tickets, which would have earned the company another $2,000+ income for this year beyond the credit.

Also, I gave you my money for a service, and while the circumstances of the pandemic required me to cancel the tickets, you in effect, have taken my money and provided no service at all for that payment.

American’s corporate policy seems to be that one disappointed customer probably isn’t worth $2,000.

While I do appreciate the polite and professional responses I have received from the American staff member I spoke to on the phone and yourself, I do feel that this relatively small issue could have been handled with a more positive outcome for a customer.

In light of the company’s position, this disappointed customer will:

• No longer use American Airlines for my air travel needs.

• Cancel my AAdvantage credit card with Citibank and share the reason with Citibank.

• Share the details of this exchange via social media and on as many travel websites/boards that I can post it to.

I’m sure some of your customers will agree with American’s position on this, but I’m also sure other customers will find the company’s unwillingness to meet a customer half-way disappointing as well. As I am sure you’re aware, customer goodwill, or the lack thereof, goes a long way in any competitive industry.

Thank you again for your time and the prompt response.



Sincerely,

Tom W.

Antarius

AA gave a lot of opportunities to use the credit, including multiple extensions.

Yes, it sucks, but what is the point in having an expiration date if it means nothing?

​​​​​​​How is this halfway? You want AA to meet you all the way on your side.

Centurion

American counts profit model includes ticket credit breakage and advantage miles breakage. It really is sad.

BrianV

Definitely sucks, and I can empathize here. While AA did provide extensions, for some, they may still not have felt comfortable traveling. I lost 4 SWUs as the extension wasn’t long enough to coincide with me flying to long-haul destinations. I didn’t email them knowing I’d receive the same outcome as this poster, but I did feel the extension wasn’t quite long enough, particularly for SWUs as International travel was still tough to pull off to many destinations (e.g. Japan) when the extended dates played in.

The issue for the OP is that if AA makes one exception, they sort of have to make that exception for everyone. There is millions and millions of dollars on the line there, it’s a huge financial liability. AA is having no problem selling seats, so they’re going to stick with their policy and feel that their already offered Covid extension was sufficient. Humbly, I wish they gave a bit more runway for those who weren’t as capable or ready to fly during and post-pandemic, like end of 2022.

To the OP, I hope you find satisfaction with other airlines. I’m not defending AA, but I suggest you maybe search other threads and see if UA/DL forums show people getting the desired leniency, I doubt they are. You’re probably trading one bad apple for another in this case. I know it feels bad and you want to stick it to them, but depending on your status/loyalty level with AA, you may want to consider that it’s probably not greener grass on the other side. Good luck!

USFlyerUS

AA bent over backwards to give customers flexibility during the pandemic. We had lots of opportunities to use credits well beyond original expiration dates. These tickets are now over 3 years old, and air travel has been mostly back to normal for over a year. This is one area I don't fault AA for given how it was handled.

Also, I suspect your original flights ended up being cancelled anyway, which would have you entitled you to a refund had you not cancelled when you did.

bchandler02

So what did AA do wrong here, besides honoring a very clearly stated policy?

BrianV

Good point on the cancelation and refund. I don’t even think AA needed to cancel flights. I had a few flights booked, I called AA and they refunded all of them in March 2020. This was for travel April through June. I don’t recall the flights being canceled, it was just we weren’t going anymore, AA refunded without issue. Bird in the hand, didn’t want to deal with credits given all the uncertainty.

wrp96

For all its faults, AA was usually pretty generous at the beginning of the pandemic about giving refunds instead of trip credits even if the flight wasn't cancelled, especially compared to some of the foreign airlines. They also extended tickets and credits well beyond their initial expiration dates, even for tickets that would normally not allow any changes, refunds, etc. At 3 years past the start of the pandemic, in most cases, I think it is reasonable for AA to say they are enforcing expiration dates.

BrianV

It’s totally reasonable, I was just providing some support to the OP and shared my personal experience. While it’s 3 years past the pandemic, there are many people that only recently felt comfortable traveling on airplanes. AA is ultimately in the business of flying people on planes, and I know people who didn’t travel at all until just the last few months. My company started business travel up again with strong approval processes last June. The first two large trips, 90% of the company got Covid, so people were opting out of travel. AA’s policy was generous enough, but it may not have fit everyones’ comfort level was my point.

I tried crazy hard to use my 2MM SWUs that were extended through June 2022, but I couldn’t. I even explored domestic flights, but it just didn’t work out. I could’ve totally used them to maximum value if they extended them to Dec 2022. As stated, I didn’t email and ask as I know I’d get a canned email just like the OP did. Ultimately, he put AA in a no-win situation with the request, they can’t honor it without opening Pandora’s box for any other customer that requests.

Going forward, whether another incident that shuts/slows travel (pandemic, terrorist, whatever), take advantage of any and all opportunities to get full refunds if you can!

Hoi polloi

Sorry you didn't get your credit, Tom. But I can't really see how AA is in the wrong here.

I'm not sure where you will take your flying money, but my guess is that none of the major carriers would've honored this request.

TomWinMD

I appreciate the thought that has gone into the comments I've seen so far, and I appreciate the different perspectives.

Keep money for a service and essentially offer nothing to a very infrequent air traveler utilizing a unilateral policy.

I thin your first point holds true if you were a more frequent air traveler - I am not. As to your second, they may have been, but I don't know that.

I appreciate where you're coming from, and I'm not approaching this from any expectation that the grass is greener elsewhere, I am simply choosing not to do business with AA in future. I'm also reasonably sure their business model (and the money the government gave them in pandemic support) and current profitability means they can afford providing the credit. And yes, I'm sure my lack of patronage won't be causing them any sleepless nights.

There are obviously plenty of customers loyal to AA's business/service, but like many customers, I believe you should get reasonable value in return for a payment, and AA has in effect mandated a policy of, 'I have your money, travel with me in the timeline I dictate or forfeit it.' in this circumstance. I won't claim or believe it would be different with any other airline, but you can either choose to work with your customers or not. In choosing not to, they have lost my business.




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PHL

This will neither help you nor hurt AA. At best, it will be therapeutic for you and nothing more. It will likely be an echo chamber with a bunch of other "AA Sucks" responses, or a few AA sympathizers that blame you for letting it sit for so long. It won't bend AA to help you any more or less, either, and it won't get you a headline in the CNN Travel section. I get that things happen in life and we may sometimes lose track of stuff like $2000 in flight credits, but how much longer should have they extended the expiration for you to feel you dropped the ball? What if you waited another year to rebook and they had told you they extended the credits until 9/2023? Same complaint? They drew a line in the sand (and moved it back a few times), and even notified customers by email and PR releases that made the news at various times. And, anyone who cared to look into the status of expensive flight credits (like $2000) would have easily found the info to be able to make a decision on whether or not to book something.

USFlyerUS

AA gave you over three years to use these tickets when normally you would only have had one year from original date of issue. If nothing else, you could have booked two cheap flights, gotten the residual as a trip credit, and only lost a small portion of each instead of the full value. This was one among many options. AA does lots wrong and has many squirrelly policies -- this isn't one of them.

Dave Noble

You chose to book a non refundable ticket, which meant that it was non refundable if YOU chose to cancel. You did choose to cancel and AA gave you credit that had an expiration date. It extended these a long while due to the pandemic issues. It then stopped extending the credit expiration date. It did nothing at all unreasonable - if you accept that other airlines would have done exactly the same, then why do you object to AA doing it?

There is nothing to 'work with'' here - it is simply that your credit expired

lougord99

I would suggest the OP look at Southwest in the future. Their travel credits do not expire.

On the other hand, Southwest has a lot of other downsides to AA. As someone who regularly flies both airlines, I prefer AA.