Earlier this year, American Airlines changed its policy when it comes to requesting confirmed same day flight changes and standby, which can only be described as anti-customer. Here’s my experience dealing with that, though fortunately there’s a positive ending to this story.
Issues with American same day confirmed changes
American allows both same day confirmed flight changes and standby, which are two different products:
- Same day flight changes are capacity controlled, and have a fee for most passengers
- Standby has no capacity controls, and is complimentary for most passengers
Earlier this year, the airline made a curious change to its policy for requesting these two services:
- Same day flight changes can no longer be requested by phone or in-person at the airport, but rather have to be requested through American’s website or mobile app
- Standby also has to be requested online, though there’s an exception for Concierge Key, Executive Platinum, and Platinum Pro members, who can make this request with an agent
A few days ago, I was flying from Chicago (ORD) to Miami (MIA). While on my way to the airport, I was running a bit ahead of schedule, and noticed there was an earlier flight which I’d arrive in time to catch.
In order to request a same day confirmed change, there need to be seats available in the “E” fare class, and on the flight I was on, there was one seat left in the “E” fare class. Perfect!
There was only one catch — I pulled up the American app to make the same day flight change, only to find that the only option was standby, rather than a same day flight change.
Okay, obviously this was a glitch, so I called up American. I mean, surely they can get me onto that flight, given that the seat that’s needed is available. Here’s roughly how that conversation went:
Me: “Hi, I was trying to make a same day confirmed change to the 5:21PM flight, and I see that there’s an ‘E’ class seat available.”
Agent: “Yes, I see the ‘E’ class seat as well, so you should be able to confirm onto that, but I can’t do that on the phone.”
Me: “I tried using the American mobile app, but it only shows standby as an option, and not a confirmed same day change.”
Agent: “Sorry, there’s nothing we can do. This should be possible, we’re just not allowed to do it by phone anymore.”
I kept refreshing the American mobile app and even tried to log-in on my laptop, but got the same result — it just didn’t want to show the option of a confirmed same day flight change.
I can appreciate that an airline wants to streamline how things are done, but when you’re making life harder than it needs to be, that sure is frustrating. The agent was agreeing with me that this should be possible, but her hands were tied. In the past, she could’ve helped, but not anymore.
What made the situation even more frustrating is that the flight I was initially booked on was showing a delay, so I would’ve gotten home around 1AM.
What I find so strange with all of this is that in the fallout from American firing Vasu Raja, the claim was that American wanted to make it easier for people to do business with the airline. Admittedly this was primarily about business travel, but I’d say that not allowing customer service agents to help customers when there’s obviously some sort of an IT glitch is not a terribly friendly policy.
I ended up winning standby lottery
This story has a happy ending. I arrived at Chicago O’Hare at around 4:50PM, and cleared security. I figured I might as well go to the departure gate of the earlier flight, and I arrived there around 5PM. The gate agents were doing a final boarding call, announcing that the door to the aircraft would close in three minutes.
I went up to the gate agent, and asked if there’s any way I could still get on standby (Executive Platinum members are supposed to be able to request standby up to 15 minutes before departure). Honestly, I was kind of expecting to be denied, just because many American frontline employees aren’t exactly customer-centric.
Fortunately it was my lucky day. He said “let me see what I can do, but just so you know, we only have middle seats left.” I told him that wasn’t a problem — yes, I was that excited to get back home (and in fairness, I had checked the seat map a minute prior, and saw there were no better seats). 😉
After a minute of typing, he handed me a boarding pass, and said “I managed to get you an exit row aisle, there was a no show.” I walked onto the plane, took my exit row aisle seat with an empty middle, and two minutes later, the main cabin door closed. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had such good luck with standby, so I was overjoyed.
Bottom line
Earlier this year, American changed its policy so that you can no longer request same day confirmed flight changes by phone or in-person. I wouldn’t mind that, if American’s website actually worked correctly.
However, prior to a recent flight I tried to make a same day confirmed change, which should’ve been available, but the website wasn’t showing the option. An American representative confirmed she saw the seat available and that it should be possible, but there was nothing she could do.
Fortunately this situation worked out okay, as I ultimately got lucky with standby. But still, American should really think twice prior to making features online-only, if the website isn’t going to work correctly.
Has anyone else been frustrated by American’s new self-serve restrictions on same day confirmed changes and standby?
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