Last edit by: footastic
Sequence of events:
American Airlines (AA) Brazil website misprices revenue tickets in initial calculation on purchase page. Repricing the same reservation by changing billing country resulted in the correct price, even when reverting to Brazil.
Vast majority of tickets appear to have gone unticketed for ~1 week. It appears that tickets were issued manually, not automatically.
AA states repeatedly and to several outlets that they will unconditionally honor all fares.
AA begins cancelling tickets. Subsequently, they send out cancellation emails implying that the "country of residence" was misrepresented. Of course, this is not the case, as AA never actually asks for the "country of residence" but the billing address which includes the country of the billing address.
Since AA repeatedly and publicly stated that they would unconditionally honor the tickets, even when specifically asked about it, many purchasers relied upon AA's representations and made non-refundable plans. DoT regulations require airlines to reimburse purchasers who relied upon mistake fares to make non-refundable plans. It may be worth writing into the US Department of Transportation (DoT) to complain about AA's handling of the situation and ask for compensation even without having non-refundable reservations, because AA went to great lengths to assure purchasers that tickets would be unconditionally honored.
DoT air travel complaint form: http://airconsumer.dot.gov/escomplaint/ConsumerForm.cfm
DoT air travel complaint mailing address:
Aviation Consumer Protection Division, C-75
U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Ave, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20590
DoT air travel complain phone line information:
You may call the ACPD 24 hours a day at 202-366-2220 (TTY 202-366-0511) to record your complaint. Calls are returned Monday through Friday, generally between 7:30 am and 5:00 pm Eastern time.
As mentioned by classyflyer and posted by pb9997, if your flight had some kind of legal nexus within Brazil, their consumer protections should apply to your ticket. Here is the contact information for the relevant consumer protection agencies within Brazil. Please be clear in your communication and REMEMBER TO SUBMIT YOUR COMMUNICATIONS IN PORTUGESE.
To translate your communications before submitting them:
http://translate.google.com
www.reclameaqui.com.br
Quote from pb9997: "This site is known to be the most popular, most viewed upon by companies who care about reputation; Though not official, it has proven to be the most respected by consumers and corporations, who may delay answers on their own channels but do take care to have teams focused on answering for this public site. Information written, from both parties, is public."
www.consumidor.gov.br
Quote again from pb9997: "This is the official PROCON site where consumers and companies present their complaints and arguments. It is official, additional care ought to be taken.
I would highly suggest following the order presented; With the first site the company has room to assess impact, prepare an amiable answer and protect their public reputation.
On the second site... well, it's official and what is written by both parties is the basis to act afterwards in a court of law. Ideally the complaint presented should have the Law that explains why a consumer has been impacted and the expected remedy, according [sic] to the Law."
As of 9/8/15 - Individuals who had tickets cancelled in the first round (8/28) have yet to see refunds post to credit cards.
Feel free to update this Wiki with more complete information.
American Airlines (AA) Brazil website misprices revenue tickets in initial calculation on purchase page. Repricing the same reservation by changing billing country resulted in the correct price, even when reverting to Brazil.
Vast majority of tickets appear to have gone unticketed for ~1 week. It appears that tickets were issued manually, not automatically.
AA states repeatedly and to several outlets that they will unconditionally honor all fares.
AA begins cancelling tickets. Subsequently, they send out cancellation emails implying that the "country of residence" was misrepresented. Of course, this is not the case, as AA never actually asks for the "country of residence" but the billing address which includes the country of the billing address.
Since AA repeatedly and publicly stated that they would unconditionally honor the tickets, even when specifically asked about it, many purchasers relied upon AA's representations and made non-refundable plans. DoT regulations require airlines to reimburse purchasers who relied upon mistake fares to make non-refundable plans. It may be worth writing into the US Department of Transportation (DoT) to complain about AA's handling of the situation and ask for compensation even without having non-refundable reservations, because AA went to great lengths to assure purchasers that tickets would be unconditionally honored.
DoT air travel complaint form: http://airconsumer.dot.gov/escomplaint/ConsumerForm.cfm
DoT air travel complaint mailing address:
Aviation Consumer Protection Division, C-75
U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Ave, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20590
DoT air travel complain phone line information:
You may call the ACPD 24 hours a day at 202-366-2220 (TTY 202-366-0511) to record your complaint. Calls are returned Monday through Friday, generally between 7:30 am and 5:00 pm Eastern time.
As mentioned by classyflyer and posted by pb9997, if your flight had some kind of legal nexus within Brazil, their consumer protections should apply to your ticket. Here is the contact information for the relevant consumer protection agencies within Brazil. Please be clear in your communication and REMEMBER TO SUBMIT YOUR COMMUNICATIONS IN PORTUGESE.
To translate your communications before submitting them:
http://translate.google.com
www.reclameaqui.com.br
Quote from pb9997: "This site is known to be the most popular, most viewed upon by companies who care about reputation; Though not official, it has proven to be the most respected by consumers and corporations, who may delay answers on their own channels but do take care to have teams focused on answering for this public site. Information written, from both parties, is public."
www.consumidor.gov.br
Quote again from pb9997: "This is the official PROCON site where consumers and companies present their complaints and arguments. It is official, additional care ought to be taken.
I would highly suggest following the order presented; With the first site the company has room to assess impact, prepare an amiable answer and protect their public reputation.
On the second site... well, it's official and what is written by both parties is the basis to act afterwards in a court of law. Ideally the complaint presented should have the Law that explains why a consumer has been impacted and the expected remedy, according [sic] to the Law."
As of 9/8/15 - Individuals who had tickets cancelled in the first round (8/28) have yet to see refunds post to credit cards.
Feel free to update this Wiki with more complete information.
[PREM FARE GONE] AA: GIG/GRU- multiple locations (HKG/LAX/MIA/SFO ETC) ~$200 Y ~$360
#886
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 371
Travel Fast
I feel like with these "mistake" fares you need to travel ASAP, second time in as many months with oneworld, if you travel fast enough before they can react, you've made it. Cathay Pacific(ZRH-BKK) one person traveled within 72 hours and it went fine. Same here, all the peeps that traveled early enough, before they(Airlines) can react seemed to make it.
#887
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: NYC
Programs: DL plat
Posts: 318
I feel like with these "mistake" fares you need to travel ASAP, second time in as many months with oneworld, if you travel fast enough before they can react, you've made it. Cathay Pacific(ZRH-BKK) one person traveled within 72 hours and it went fine. Same here, all the peeps that traveled early enough, before they(Airlines) can react seemed to make it.
#888
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: San Jose
Programs: Aadvantage Plat
Posts: 19
I feel like with these "mistake" fares you need to travel ASAP, second time in as many months with oneworld, if you travel fast enough before they can react, you've made it. Cathay Pacific(ZRH-BKK) one person traveled within 72 hours and it went fine. Same here, all the peeps that traveled early enough, before they(Airlines) can react seemed to make it.
#889
Join Date: Feb 2002
Programs: Hilton Diamond
Posts: 177
I was told same thing they are canceling tickets and will send an email along with refund in 7-10 business days.
Still love AA but it wasn't cool to manually approve the tickets, publicly state they would honor and then cancel it after people had made plans based on these tickets.
Still love AA but it wasn't cool to manually approve the tickets, publicly state they would honor and then cancel it after people had made plans based on these tickets.
#890
Join Date: Jan 2006
Programs: AA Exp
Posts: 836
I was told same thing they are canceling tickets and will send an email along with refund in 7-10 business days.
Still love AA but it wasn't cool to manually approve the tickets, publicly state they would honor and then cancel it after people had made plans based on these tickets.
Still love AA but it wasn't cool to manually approve the tickets, publicly state they would honor and then cancel it after people had made plans based on these tickets.
Quickly canceling sale/mistake fares is one thing, but this...
#891
Join Date: Jun 2005
Programs: AS MVPG
Posts: 2,209
Seems like they aren't even going to bother with prompt notification that tickets will be cancelled. Reminds me of how we got some of the DOT rules in the first place. KE's vindictive late cancellations of a fare they thought people were talking advantage of (Palau fares) and wanted to punish the customers by waiting months to cancel them.
#892
Exactly. Confirming to people publicly that these would be honored and making statements to online news agency's and then adding a caveat and cancelling tickets is really bad. I for one have positioning flights and a hotel that I will eat. I would not have booked any additional travel without the confirmation from several sources.
#893
Join Date: Feb 2002
Programs: Hilton Diamond
Posts: 177
I agree with the spirit of your post though.
#894
Join Date: Jan 2006
Programs: AA Exp
Posts: 836
I was so caught up in my I-want-to-fly-business-class bubble, that I temporarily forgot that there is more to an airline than the way they deal with special/mistakes fares...
Thank you for reminding me! ^
#896
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: BOS
Programs: AA EXP/2mm, SPG Gold
Posts: 424
I'm wondering if there is a DOT case against the canceling of the reinstated tickets. The reinstated tickets went through several levels of approvals, including the rate desk. They manually reviewed everything about the reservation and still decided to reissue the ticket even when they were aware that the PNR was annotated with Mistake Currency Fare or something similar.
#897
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 13
I'm wondering if there is a DOT case against the canceling of the reinstated tickets. The reinstated tickets went through several levels of approvals, including the rate desk. They manually reviewed everything about the reservation and still decided to reissue the ticket even when they were aware that the PNR was annotated with Mistake Currency Fare or something similar.
#898
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: DUS
Programs: BA EC, A3 MB
Posts: 5
AFAIK they will cancel everyone who booked via the brazilian website (origin Brazil) and provided a non-brazilian adress and/or CC. A little bit disappointing regarding the annoncements to honor all tickets...
Next time, probably thursday?
Next time, probably thursday?
#899
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: BOS
Programs: AA EXP/2mm, SPG Gold
Posts: 424
Also, for those that still have "ticket pending", I think the best advice at this point is to not trigger anything that would cause ticketing. Looks like they are only canceling reservations that were already ticketed. Perhaps if you get over the wave of cancellations and then ticket, you could be safe.
#900
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Upper Sternistan
Posts: 10,047
OK - so can we get some data points from those who have been canceled? It's probably inevitable that we'll all get hit here, but let's see what we've got:
-CC - Brazilian or not?
-Metal - all AA or partners?
-Brazilian airports - Does any of your itinerary touch Brazil?
Anything else relevant?
-CC - Brazilian or not?
-Metal - all AA or partners?
-Brazilian airports - Does any of your itinerary touch Brazil?
Anything else relevant?