Questions and Answers

Hi,

I just encountered this situation and am unclear to what rights I have for a cancelled flight. I originally booked a flight in June 2019 on AA from December 27th, 2019 to January 5th, 2020. Departure flight was on AA metal, LAX to London, and return flight was on Air Tahiti Nui from CDG to LAX; both flights were non-stop.

I recently learned (through my own monitoring) that the Air Tahiti Nui flight was cancelled. AA did not notify me of that at all; the return flight just disappeared from my trips on the AA portal, and the pricing reflected to show as if I paid the same amount for a 1 way flight.

Anyways, I called AA and they said that they said Air Tahiti Nui no longer operated the flight, but they could rebook me on another AA flight that same day. The catch is that there are no nonstops from Paris to LAX and they said they would only book me on a flight with a connection or I can get a full refund. I asked for any upgrades (ex. bumping up to Premium Economy) to accommodate for the connection vs. nonstop and was told I would need to pay more for the difference in seat price.

Is this allowed? And what rights / actions do I have aside from cancelling for a full refund (prices have gone up since I booked in June, but had I know this would be cancelled and been offered these limited options, I may have gone with a different airline)?

[QUOTE=”Chester, post: 66046, member: 5915″]
Is this allowed? And what rights / actions do I have aside from cancelling for a full refund (prices have gone up since I booked in June, but had I know this would be cancelled and been offered these limited options, I may have gone with a different airline)?[/QUOTE]

Yes, it is allowed. You contracted with AA to get you from CDG to LAX. Unfortunately, that does not mean non-stop. Your rights are that you are entitled to a full refund or a different routing. That is always a risk you run when choosing an airline that only offers one non-stop flight a day (or in this case, none, as the provider was Air Tahiti Nui).

You may want to consider keeping the ticketing, accepting the rerouting, and seeing how much extra upgrading to premium economy will cost you. One-way upgrades to premium economy on AA are often not too expensive.

I might also contact AA with a polite short note after the trip expressing the inconvenience caused to you. They may be willing to issue miles as a gesture of goodwill.