What Compensation To Expect After Bad Flight On American?

while not directly on point Ben, I'm interested in your thoughts about GetAirHelp - see http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/24/technology/upstarts-airhelp-airlines/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_tech_pool&iid=obnetwork

Hey Lucky, when you say to look for other availability options, what is the best tool/website for doing this?

There is also A LOT of inconsistency with what AA decides to give you. If many people experience the same thing (delay, baggage, IFE, etc) you can expect AA to dole out different compensation to each person -- regardless of status. Depending on the agent handling your case, you may get 2000 miles or 20,000 miles. Once the decision has been made, not matter how unfair, it appears that there is little that can be done. Unless Ben has another tip besides the EXP Line.

I agree that I wouldn't have accepted the re-route through Miami, although it does sound like Luis was "lucky" and was on the 777-200 flight AA operates between LAX-MIA. Normally that flight would be a 737 or something of that sort. I'm a little perplexed why the agent didn't rebook Luis on a direct LAX-LHR flight, even if it was in Business. The new Business Class on the 777-330ER is superb, at least in my opinion. Plus he would get the difference in miles from First to Business credited back to him. My guess would be the time of day Luis was flying as the 2 AA and 2 BA LAX-LHR leave in the late afternoon and evening only. Luis could have also specified he only wanted to be in First Class and the 8 seats were full on the direct flights. As you stated, the gate agents usually won't rebook onto BA unless specifically asked, especially for a First Class seat. No way Luis will get a full refund of his miles. Last time I had a broken seat in First Class, I got 10,000 miles and was satisfied with that.

Back in 2012, I flew AA first from LAX to BOS on the Red Eye and my seat wouldn't recline at all. I was comped 10K miles. Not sure if I had much room for negotiations.

I would assume that compensation would also weigh heavily on status...

@Lucky,

While I understand that there can be weather delays even though the weather at the origin and destination may be fine, is there a way to independently verify if a flight delay or cancellation is really due to weather or is a mechanical?

Would it ever make sense to make two separate claims since it was two separate incidents? Having a broken first class seat should be a full refund of that leg or at least a refund to the coach price.

I fly BA business to St lucia and my seat didn't go into the Z position. I emailed them and was comped 50,000 avios. (The total cost of the flight)

Base on eu law, they can claim up to 1220 euro for luggage delay and if miami- heathrow leg is downgraded you cant get 75% refund on that leg.

you cant get 75% refund on that leg.-----> they can get 75% refund on that leg.

Adam: This is the reason why I fly EU airlines most of the time btw. No American carrier.

But it seems tgat their tickets were purchased by mile..... It is hard to say what can they get with not enough detail

In 2013, my wife and I flew on United award tickets from Portland to Newark (UA) to Lisbon (TAP). The return flight was from Porto to London (TAP) to SFO (United). We were looking forward to flying upstairs in business class on a 380 and I had researched and chosen seats 6 months in advance. We had never been upstairs in an airplane before. When we got to Heathrow Airport, the counter agent said that my wife did not have a return ticket. After about 30 minutes of research and getting passed around, they came back and said that we'd cancelled just my wife's return ticket on the date of our outbound flight. Huh? Luckily, after some more discussion, they found us two business class seats together downstairs next to the galley for the long haul leg to SFO, then standby coach to PDX. Not the end of the world, but still a little disappointing plus the stress of not knowing if my wife would return with me at all. For compensation, they gave her 20,000 miles and me 10,000 miles. Totally worth it.

Complain via Twitter. They get back to you pretty quick that way.

Ben, thanks for addressing this. A few points regarding your post. I did immediately jump online to find an alternative flight that I can be booked on. There were no more available seats (first or business) on a direct route to LHR from LAX. The only option was on BA later that evening (our original outbound flight was at 8am) but the agent was very adamant that they will not rebook us on a partner flight given that we were on a award ticket and not a revenue ticket. So yeah, outside of flying coach, the flight through Miami was our next best option.

After emailing customer relations back and forth a few times, getting it escalated to supervisors, and even getting a call from them, what they were able to offer me was 25k miles and a $300 voucher for my infant. It's just very frustrating that as a consumer, there isn't much we can do in these situations. Basically just have to accept what they offer. It's one thing if I fly in premium cabins a lot for work and I can just chalk this up as a bad flight, but like many people, I have to save miles for years to take one really nice trip in first class, so when everything seems to go wrong, it's very frustrating.

Are you sure there wasn't a shoe lodged in the seat so it wouldn't recline all the way?

I had a very similar situation to Luis with regard to broken seat and just overall bad trip. I was given like 15-20k miles as compensation and requested full refund of my miles. Got the standard letter back and very little compensation. This was JFK to lax en route to Hawaii all first class. The hard product was on the old planes and was awful for first class.

" I requested a full refund for 135k miles and I think that’s reasonable." LOL

@Rico -- UA doesn't fly 380s. Were you booked on LH originally?

GringoLoco, good catch. I was confused, since I have since flown upstairs on the 380. It was a 747 on United.

Since I just got the final adjudication letter recently, I would like to know if I should escalate this further.

Back in January, took USair NYC-LAS on Friday, to return Monday LAS-JFK, storm of the century hitting Monday afternoon, return flight cxl, NYC airports close for at least 2 days per weather report on Monday morning. Had another booking for Wednesday JFK-SFO on AA. Seems logical to request a cancellation of JFK-SFO and a refund, then took LAS-SFO(Monday), SFO-JFK(Friday). USair would not refund tickets, tickets still good for future use (within 1yr) but would be accessed $200 change fee. I'm EXP but wife have no status.

@Lucky, any thoughts?

I'm amazed that so many people think 10K or 20K is reasonable, as that's basically saying that the difference between first class and business class is $100-200, or that being able to adjust the seat is only $100-200 of the total value of what is likely a many thousand dollar ticket at retail price.

You wouldn't go to a store, buy a MacBook Pro for $3000, and expect them to say, "sorry, there was a weather delay in shipping, so instead you get a $1000 MacBook and $200 in store credit", and find that acceptable.

hard not to feel sympathy for Luis....he saves up a ton of miles to do a first class experience, has a terrible experience, gets crap compensation (relative to the sheer # of miles he burned), and has virtually zero recourse.

I cannot see how 25k miles is even close to proper compensation. Not everyone spends their hobbying around with miles whereby the miles are easy come, easy go. For average folks, the miles take years to accumulate. What a joke.

Logically, if you end up in business class when you "paid" for 1st class, you should be compensated the difference in mileage points. That's only fair. Asking for all your miles back is sort of ridiculous, because you went on the trip. A broken seat, well that's just bad luck, be happy to get anything.

I went on a trip on Jan 6 2013 to Tenerife. It was the day of the blizzard in the Chicago area. All the flights were cancelled into Chicago and pretty much everywhere else in the US (I live in Wisconsin). But the flights to Europe were still going. So we drove 2 hours to Chicago in -20 degree F weather, had to pay to park the car for 2 weeks and inconvenienced to hell. However, we did get on the flight and went on the trip. Changing the itinerary would have been difficult, since the flight to Madrid and then Tenerife didn't go every day.

I was just happy to get to the destination. It was also nice and warm there. Couldn't get a refund. Oh well.

@ Hank -- That unfortunately is tricky, since it was presumably on separate reservations. Was there also a travel waiver for Wednesday? If not, it really comes down to the agent you get, unfortunately. That's tricky, sorry. 🙁

@ Luis -- Very frustrating indeed. Thanks for the update. For what it's worth, next time I'd try talking to a different agent while at the airport -- they should have been able to rebook you on BA. Here's to hoping the next trip goes more smoothly!

@ Tom -- Since it's for different directions of travel, that's certainly not a bad idea in this case, in my opinion.

@ travel4b -- Yep, if you look at flightstats.com you can see the "recorded" reason for a delay, so that's usually the first tool I jump onto to see the real problem.

@ GJ -- You can use ExpertFlyer, or just look at the airline's site directly to see on which flights they have space.

I filed a complaint with AA a couple of days ago. I was re routed from my BA first class to Iberia business class. Hoping I can get my BA fuel surcharge of $450 refunded.

I live in Asia and fly backwards and forwards to Europe and the US. Like someone else said, I avoid US airlines like the plague as, no matter which one you fly, when you have a problem the recourse is nowhere near as good as with an EU airline. For me, it's EU all the way, with an occasional airline flown in.

I had purchased American Airline Tickets from Priceline for $780.00. I had to cancel the flight because of a family emergency and did so within their 24 hour cancellation period. The AA rep told me that the flight was cancelled and to expect a refund in 7-10 days. I called back on the 11th day and then was informed that I could not get a refund back because I did not call Priceline directly. Can anyone suggest what I can do?