Broken American Business Class Seat: Lowball Compensation Offer?

David reached out about a frustrating situation he had on a recent American Airlines business class flight, where it sure seems like the airline needs to do better.

American offers 10K miles for broken business class seat

Let me just copy and paste David’s experience, since it’s pretty concise:

I was flying AMS-PHL. After meal service was completed, I went to recline/sleep, but quickly figured out that my seat was non-operational in business. I made the crew aware, who tried to manually recline it, but couldn’t. After writing into customer service, I was offered 10k miles to myself and my travel companion (who was not really effected by this). 

I pushed back, and got a call from the rep in Customer Relations, who told me the most that they could do is 10k miles or $150 flight credit, and there was no supervisor who could offer a different resolution.

I feel entitled to a fare difference here since the seat just did not work whatsoever, and neither did the IFE controller (not that I cared much on that point).

For what it’s worth, I followed up with David to ask how much he paid for his ticket. He explained that he redeemed Qantas points for the flight, and the roundtrip itinerary cost 136,800 points plus $583 in taxes & fees per person.

That really is an underwhelming compensation offer

I’m not surprised to see that American offered 10,000 AAdvantage miles as compensation during the initial communication, given that the airline has largely automated customer relations, so the system presumably decided that was appropriate. What I am a bit surprised, by, however, is that a call from customer relations came with the same offer, or the alternative of a $150 travel credit (which I’d value roughly the same as 10,000 AAdvantage miles).

Admittedly points were redeemed for the ticket, so compensation expectations should be a bit different if you paid $10,000 for your ticket, vs. paying some number of miles. However, no matter how you slice it, the offer was cheap.

What would be appropriate?

• I guess he was actually offered 20,000 miles compensation, since the companion was offered the same mileage compensation, for whatever reason (that seems like an oversight due to customer relations being automated, rather than anything else)
• If you were to assume that economy would require half as many points as business class, that would put half of the cost of a one-way at somewhere around 34,000 points (and those are Qantas points and not American miles

Personally, I think 30,000 miles or a $300 travel credit would be the absolute minimum that would be appropriate here.

So, why is American being so cheap with compensation, especially when we’re talking about miles and travel credits, which don’t cost the airline anywhere close to face value? There’s obviously some sort of a chart that customer relations employees follow, and for whatever reason, it seems like 10,000 miles is probably the maximum for something involving seat issues. I suspect the compensation would be the same whether it was a broken reading light, or the seat just not working at all.

Airlines understandably have a hard line they’ll draw when it comes to maximum compensation, but 10,000 miles shouldn’t be it. This also gets at how American isn’t empowering its frontline employees to make situations right. A few thoughts:

• Personally I always check if seat functions work before a flight departs; that being said, it’s not a guarantee that maintenance staff would’ve been able to fix it in time, and there might not have been any great alternatives
• I’m not sure if David did this, but always ask crews to document any issues, so that there’s a record of the problem, and so that customer relations knows you’re not making something up
• American should really give its flight attendants the ability to provide some proactive compensation on the spot, since they can see firsthand how much of an inconvenience something causes
• Unfortunately this is one of those situations where your only chance of getting a better resolution is probably to email American’s CEO, and then that’ll be passed off to some “executive” customer relations employee

I hate the whole “email the airline CEO” thing, but when airlines don’t provide any avenues to get a fair resolution, it’s often the only thing that leads to a positive outcome. We know American is shifting its strategy, and wants to become more premium. As American’s Chief Strategy Officer recently outlined to employees:

It is abundantly clear the competitive battleground in the network airline business has, like never before, shifted sharply to product and customer service. As our ability to outperform in revenue will depend increasingly on embracing that reality and delivering a different and elevated customer experience, especially for our premium and most loyal customers.

A key part of that needs to be making sure that seats are actually functioning correctly, and also making things right when they aren’t.

Bottom line

A passenger was booked in American business class on a transatlantic flight, only to find that his seat was broken, and couldn’t recline. When he contacted customer relations after the flight, he was offered just 10,000 AAdvantage miles as compensation. That’s a mighty underwhelming offer, and I’d expect better.

What do you think is appropriate compensation in a situation like this? Has anyone been in a similar situation on American, and if so, what were you offered?