Expiring credit from cancelled flight
 

Due to medical issues my wife had to cancel a flight bought last May. She has until the same date in May this year to purchase a new ticket with the credit and commence travel, but will not be able to meet that date. If she purchases a new ticket with the credit that costs less than the amount of credit, AA will issue her a paper voucher good for a year for the difference.

It occurs to me that she could buy an inexpensive one-way from A to B, not use it (possibly cancel it prior to flight) and get a voucher that preserves most of the credit for another year. Has anyone experience with this, i.e. will AA issue the voucher even if she does not board the flight from A to B?

I've done this before. It's a good strategy and the only one as far as I know.

The voucher is issued for the fare difference (minus change fee) when you ticket the inexpensive A-B, so whether you ultimately board or cancel the throwaway flight is irrelevant. I'm not sure if the voucher would also be transferable, which would be an added bonus.

That's correct, and yes, the voucher is transferable (unlike the original ticket value for the first change, which must be reissued in the same name). I forget exactly what has to be done for transferring the voucher -- it may be that the named holder has to be present if done at the airport. Someone else should be able to jump in on this.

I wonder if, now that AA is doing 24 hour refunds instead of holds, you could also request a 24 hour refund to a second voucher for the A-B you didn't intend to fly...

Thanks, we will give it a try. As to transferring the paper voucher, the Terms and Conditions printed on it seem to preclude that.

It depends what you mean by transferable. You can't just give it to someone else and have them use it as a bearer document, but there exists a process for the holder to redeem it toward a ticket in another's name.

Umm, so this was an important detail you have not mentioned until now. Remember, when I mentioned that I had this happen once? Yeah, it involved SWUs also.

I am pretty sure that because you made a reservation, applied a voucher and SWUs, it will not ticket on its own based on my own experience. At T-24 before the first flight, you will need to call to get this ticketed I believe. I am not sure if this is just an issue that occurs sometimes or something you can count on that just hasn't been really documented by others in the past (voucher plus SWU might not be very common).

As I mentioned before, there is nada you can do until T-24. At T-24, you call and say that my voucher reservation is not ticketed, please force it as it will definitely not finish on its own and it is time to check-in. And they will put it in a special queue (still can take up to 1-2 hours I remember). You can ask all you want, but agents have been instructed to not force ticketing until T-24. I a not sure this combination is documented as never resulting in an automatic ticketing.

Rasheed

eVoucher value exceeds ticket cost
 

Apology if this has been asked and answered.

I have an eVoucher which exceeds the ticket I intend to purchase in value.

Q: Would I continue to use the same eVoucher ? or get another eVoucher/paper voucher with residual value?

Thanks!

A new voucher for the residual value will be issued.

What is the correct address to send paper vouchers to if the funds on the voucher are in Canadian Dollars and are to be used towards a oneway flight from the US to Canada, where the ticket is priced in Canadian Dollars?

The Wiki tells me to check the AA website, but I can't find any voucher address there.

http://flyerguide.com/Vouchers_(AA) provides this information, but it is over five years old:

What's the address where I send my vouchers to?
From the US (Last updated, July 2015):
American Airlines
5031 Commerce Park Circle
Department 109
Pensacola, FL 32505

From Canada (Last updated, Oct 12, 2010):
American Airlines
6671 Caroline St.
Box 114
Milton, FL 32570-4781

And does the choice of address depend on where the voucher is MAILED from, where the flight DEPARTS from, what the passenger's BILLING address is, or what the CURRENCY of the voucher is?

Today 4/25 I noticed mine was ticketed and also I received confirmation email.
SWUs were pulled a while ago during "Pending".
My ticket value is higher than the travel voucher and I confirmed that AA finally charged the difference on my credit card.
However, my travel companion's is still "Pending".
Booking dates, departure date, mailing travel vouchers are all the same. Only the difference is his ticket value is lower than his travel vouchers, so no credit card information attached to his reservation.
His SWUs were already pulled a while ago, so he hopes to get ticketed soon...
By the way our very first flight will depart on 6/2, so I didn't wait that long which is good :)

VDB but no voucher if can get there earlier?
 

(Mods, please fix title if too ambiguous, I'm running on too little sleep. Or merge into an existing thread if there is one.)

I was flying CAE-CLT-PHL last week. When I arrived at the gate at CAE, GA announced they were oversold and was offering a $300 voucher for volunteering one's seat. I wasn't in a big hurry, so I offered mine up, and suggested they put me on a later direct CAE-PHL flight. The GA took my BP and said she'd let me know if she ended up needing me.

A few min later, she came to where I was sitting and said they could use me, but because the direct flight would get me to PHL earlier than my original itinerary, I would not be entitled to the voucher. So I of course declined, as I'd not only get nothing in return, but would be giving up 500 EQMs, 1 EQS, and my F upgrade on CLT-PHL, since CAE-PHL is on a CR2.

Is this really the policy? I've never heard this before. If so, it's pretty crappy from AA since giving up a seat on an oversold flight keeps them from IDB-ing someone and having to pay actual cash money.

IIRC if you don't arrive late, DOT regulations say that you're not owed any IDB compensation. So the airline could do an IDB and the only "cost" to them would be reporting the IDB and having their statistics look very slightly less good.

OTOH, since in this case there would be a change of carrier from mainline to a regional affiliate, the OP would be entitled to a full refund or rebooking on another carrier/routing that's acceptable to both the airline and the passenger.

Very lame :td: I'm glad you said no...I would have done the same...especially if they wanted me to give up 500 EQMs and confirmed F.

FlyerTalk: Where people scream about being rerouted with a connection but also turn down direct flights that get them to their destination earlier.

Ha ha.