7Continents

Experienced traveler but never this situation so the explanations for the why the situation happened are well known.
15:55 Flight JFK-ORD. At 1215 posted delay to 1700. At 1630 posted delay to 1830. At 1830 pilot says right side door faulty, that plane isn't going anywhere. Posted delay to 2230. They load us up and taxi at 2320 only to return to gate as there were still too many planes waiting to take off and crew timed out. Delay posted to 0700. Sometime before 0400 delay posted to 0800.
Since there was no cancelation, everyone with non refundable tix or baggage checked was essentially a hostage. The people at the gate were screaming bloody murder and I had the chance to go home for a couple of hours. They gave everyone 10k miles. I'm AA-Gold and asked for the $135 I spent on the extra round trip to the airport as I flew the 16 hour delay. AA said no since I got 10k miles. 10k is worth less than $135 (IMHO, do you agree)? CitiAdvantage card does not give trip delay benefits.
Does anyone think I can get anywhere? Thanks

lowfareair

They are not required by law to provide it BUT:

1) It was a mechanical/crew reason which means they should cover the taxi/uber roundtrip and if they don't, complain to the DOT as that is a very pertinent issue right now as the big 4 airlines are "voluntarily" saying they'll provide stuff like that when a delay is within their control. A DOT complaint with a note that the delay was their fault and they refuse to provide compensation for reasonable and required expenses should bear fruit.

2) For future reference, they are required by law to provide a refund if there is a significant delay and you decline to travel. Doesn't matter the reason. I don't think there is an explicit definition of significant delay but 16 hours is out of the grey area.

guv1976

Where did you get that idea?

"Get your money back

"If your flight is delayed by more than four hours, and you don’t accept the alternate flight options available from American (or if there weren’t any available), the airline will refund any remaining ticket value plus optional fees like seat selection or baggage fees.

"This is not just a credit or flight voucher — it’s an actual refund. So make sure to ask for it if the airline offers a credit or miles in exchange for the inconvenience."

Source:

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/t...-flight-delays

AA's Conditions of Carriage document agrees:

"If we or our airline partner fails to operate or delays your arrival more than 4 hours, our sole obligation is to refund the remaining ticket value and any optional fees according to our involuntary refunds policy, subject to our policy for rebooking your delayed / canceled flight."

"Involuntary refunds


"If you are due a refund because we failed to operate on schedule (a delay to your departure time of over 4 hours) or we refused to let you fly for reasons other than your violation of this contract, we will refund you:

"The full amount of the ticket and any extras if travel hasn't started[;]

"The value of the unused travel if the ticket is partially used."

Source:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-ser...f-carriage.jsp

If you want trip-delay coverage for your flights, buy your tickets with a credit card which offers such coverage.

And while there are no guarantees, I think that it is often possible to get (at least) $135 in value from 10,000 AAdvantage miles -- perhaps on their own; perhaps in combination with additional AA miles. There are probably more than a few FTers who would happily buy AA miles for 1.35¢ apiece.