WebDesignGuy

Hello everyone! I don't fly AA very often, but I needed to take a quick trip DCA-BNA this week. I left 2/16 and was scheduled to return 2/20 in the evening - all scheduled through AA.

Due to snow scheduled for DC on Wednesday, this morning, I used the Chase platform to book a one-way ticket for Tuesday evening back to DC.

When I logged into aa.com a few minutes later, I saw they had already added the new flight to my bookings, and had already automatically canceled the Wednesday trip.

My question is - are they allowed to cancel a trip that by all accounts, could easily be made. Barring the forecasted weather, it is not difficult to fly to DC on Tuesday evening, and be back in Nashville for the flight on Wednesday evening.

This doesn't make much difference to me on this trip, but I have taken weird, close flights like this before - scheduling quick round trips on various airlines in the middle of an existing round trip. It's surprising to me that this would be allowed under the COC.

Thoughts?

JMN57

I am surprised that they cancelled your Wednesday trip. As you note, you could have had other transportation back to DC on Wednesday AM and made your scheduled flight. I have seen cancellations when flights directly conflict (I use aa.com directly and in those cases it won't let you book) In this case, the flights are offset by a day and those cases seem not to be flagged.

BTW - there are many reasons for the flights you booked to be valid and it is disturbing for AA to cancel out the second flight automatically. For example, you could be a pilot and ferrying a private plane from BNA to DC on Wed AM. Or some reason popped that you needed to be @ BNA Tuesday PM and you had a lunch back @ DCA on Wed. All valid and none justifying AA pulling the plug on a later flight.

platbrownguy

I would call to inquire. Doesn't make sense to me. I've had to do legitimate same day round trips DCA-SDF-DCA or vice versa, buying individual segments in sometimes strange ways because of who was paying for what, and never had anything cancel.

Did you get credit for your 2/16 flight? A likelier explanation may be that they mistakenly thought you no-showed that flight and thus canceled the return.

NYC Flyer

AA has generally been the most aggressive legacy in developing IT to identify and manage duplicate bookings. Whenever I'm working on a search for a client, I always ensure they don't have another booking, as these generally result in an immediate problem when it comes to AA.

I don't have the rules handy, but traveling the same route, same direction within a 24 hour period with no notation in the record that there is travel via another a carrier (or train/car) in between to complete a circle trip will flag a segment as a dupe. Theoretically, you could indeed find your way back to BNA in time to make the second flight, but it's also not unreasonable to conclude that the newer one-way booking is the one you intended to fly. I think AA probably could handle communication better here (my guess is you received no formal notice).

A good rule to follow is If you're intent on protecting a flight on another day/time for any reason, either work it out with the airline in your original PNR or book the alternate flight on another carrier.

Uncle Nonny

I've had it done several times domestically in the past year. Each client I have pays my airfare round trip. Sometimes I don't fly return legs. AA IT will catch an obvious un-doable flight and cancel it on occasion.

dls25

Don't put your AAdvantage # in one of the bookings until check-in and AA IT will have no issue with the conflicting bookings.

NYC Flyer

I don't think you can count on this M.O. to work.

dls25

I have literally done this before and had no problems...

NYC Flyer

I was not disputing your experience. I can assure you that many bookings made across the system have no AAdvantage number associated with them, and given how seriously the airlines take duplicate bookings, data beyond FF #s is scrubbed to identify potential dupes.

Often1

To answer OP's question. Yes, AA may do so and it has recently become more aggresive and appears to use many factors beyond middle initials, FF#'s and other details which people used to use to "fool" the system. CC#'s, IP addresses and the like seem to be checked as well. Not suggesting that there isn't some massive fraud you can pull, but don't count on the good old days. Inventory "breakage" has become a serious revenue issue.

AA's contractual provision is much more expansive than "impossible" ticketing. All it states is that the ticket may be cancelled if:

"We find that the ticket was bought using an exploitative practice"

Your ticket was not "impossible" but throws up red flags. In a situation where you really do want to fly all of the segments of both tickets, call in and provide the reasoning so that it can be added as an entry to the PNR notes.

Happy

Poster hasn't said clear enough how the back up flight is booked.

Presumably the poster booked his flight with UR points (he mentioned about Chase).

If so, the payment card and IP address would have NOTHING to link to him. It would be Expedia's payment card and Expedia's IP as Chase UR travel portal now is handled by Expedia.

However the name and the FFP number would.

NYC Flyer

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