New (American) Airlines Game?

[t-mac]

Getting ready for a liveaboard next week over Thanksgiving -- doing the Caribbean Explorer 2 to Saba. I was really looking forward to it, but now American Airlines has decided to provide me an unwelcome distraction. I am connecting through Charlotte to their single St. Kitts flight per day. I like to take the early flight out and had booked perhaps a ridiculously long 5 hour layover. Did not want any chance of missing the connection.

Well, American decides to change my itinerary with a 45 minute layover and I've seen this movie enough times to know that it's not a feel-good story. I call them an they say they would be happy to change me to another flight with less than a 3 hours layover. Guess what! There are none. I have the option to change back to what I originally bought, but now it's going to cost me $1200! They explained that they would have been happy to change me if I had called them within 24 hours of the original purchase -- but of course, they didn't change my flight until after that.

I view this essentially as extortion. They switched me to something that makes me nervous about losing my whole trip so that they can collect $1200 to sell me what I originally bought in the first place. Anyone else experience this? Even better, any suggestions as to what to do about this?

Thanks!

 

[Damselfish]

Maybe you've done this already, but try again? And try the "ask for a supervisor" routine? Sometimes you get different results from different agents. I've had something like that happen, and had an agent look at it and say it was stupid, and just fix it. And of course, if you find a sympathetic ear and it seems like it would be helpful, explain that your destination is a boat which will have left so it's not a simple matter of checking into a hotel a day late. (Though they should be diving around St Kitts for a day or so, so getting on the boat the next day would probably not be too hard, even though it would suck. I went on a land tour on St Kitts the first or second afternoon out from a port at the other end of the island.)

Another idea - I think Explorer will book flights. Even though I assume they didn't book the flights for you, maybe their agent would be able to help somehow.

Of major airports Charlotte is one of the few I'd think I might have a chance with 45 minutes. But I wouldn't intentionally book that either.

 

[t-mac]

Thanks. I may try that. The agent told me I should write customer relations, which I did. They told me no dice using essentially a form response. I sent back a nice reply, explaining how they must realize this looks like something it hopefully is not (extortion) and suggesting that simply doing what they must do legally may not be the proper bar for measuring customer relations. Let's see if that gets me somewhere. Not really hopeful.

 

[redacted]

Why not drive to Charlotte? Still a ticket change charge but it gives you more control.

 

[t-mac]

Also a good suggestion. Complicated because I'm coming back through a different airport, so now we have a rental car on both ends with lots of logistics because I live in the boonies. Still hoping AA does the right thing. I'm encouraged because I didn't get the quick canned response back from them this time. Either they are ignoring me or perhaps actually thinking about the stupid position they've put me in. More likely the former, but I'm a half-full person, so I'll give them a chance to prove my optimism to be misplaced.

 

[AdivingBel]

You may have cause for hope. I recently had a somewhat similar incident with AA (they cancelled multiple flights in my itinerary and messed up my connections) and found the folks in the "refund" department considerably more helpful in resolving these types of problems than those ticketing. It makes sense considering the call volume the ticketing agents deal with, but I wish they were instructed to refer customers to the "refund department" earlier in the conversation and were more helpful than just pointing to the website (i.e. phone number or direct transfer). I did contact AA customer service with this advice and received a polite response.

BTW, my situation was resolved to my satisfaction. I hope yours will be as well (but it may be after the fact). Good luck. I may just have been lucky.

 

[DandyDon]

My thought on flying to catch a boat, or any other situation where you absolutely have to be there, is to arrive the day before.

 

[t-mac]

Agree, but no choice here. I'm prepared to accept the risk profile I purchased and to deal with the consequences of that; I would not be posting if something happened to the itinerary I bought or even if there were not a simple solution. What I find offensive is the airline unilaterally increasing that risk profile to the point of almost certain failure and then offering to let me pay $1200 more to buy that risk back down to the one I originally purchased. There are two earlier flights they could put me on (still room), but they decided unilaterally to put me on the tight connection that will not happen, rather than to put me on a flight, like the one I booked, that leaves plenty of room for error. My suspicion is that they are overbooked and this is a convenient way either to bump me or to extort me.

 

[DandyDon]

Agree, but no choice here.

Agreed what? Can you go a day earlier, or call to hold for a supervisor?

 

[t-mac]

Agree best to go a day in advance, but not possible. If I don't get something back today I'm going to go for the supervisor.