Advice Requested Re: AA Flight Cancellation

[Matt Molnar]

As mentioned in the Upcoming Trips thread, the lady and I booked a trip to Europe in mid-April, starting in Seville. At the time we were planning this, JFK-MAD-SVQ followed by LHR-JFK on AA+Iberia was around $1200, so came up with a creative routing for the first leg, a JFK-STN redeye on American, followed by a 6 hour layover, and then on to SVQ via a cheap flight aboard Ryanair.

AA last week informed us they had canceled our flight...apparently with the new Open Skies agreement taking effect this week, they've rerouted their second STN flight to LHR. Undoubtedly they knew they were going to do this months ago, yet allowed people to book the flight anyway. The remaining flight leaves almost four hours earlier which would cause us to miss an extra 1/2 day of work, and would get us to STN just in time to miss the morning Ryanair flight by about 10 minutes, leaving us with a solid 10 hour layover. 6 hours was borderline silly on our part, but 10 hours that isn't our fault is unbearable. We could hang out in London for the day, but transport for two people between the airports will add up to quite a bit, and we're ending our trip with a couple days in London anyway.

We called AA, and they were not very helpful...

a. They'll rebook us on an LHR flight with a shorter layover, but will not compensate us for our transit to STN.
b. They'll cancel our reservation without penalty
c. They'll rebook us on their Iberia codeshare to SVQ via Madrid, but we'd pay about $150 extra for each of us.
d. They refuse to honor the 10% coupon we originally booked the flight with if we rebook on the Iberia flight.

We're leaning toward option C because it is simple will get us to SVQ much earlier. Had the fare been as low when we were originally booking as it is now we would have booked that in the first place. It seems pretty likely we will, however, lose over $150 we gave to Ryanair.

AA's lack of assistance is infuriating as this is clearly their fault for letting people plan travel around flights they knew would not exist.

So what do you guys think? Any thoughts on ways to continue pressing AA? Should I attempt to dispute the Ryanair transaction with my credit card issuer?

[T-Bird76]

The problem is Matt your connection has nothing to do with AA so they aren't obligated to do a thing. If the connection was on a codeshare the rebooking would be pretty seemless. I'm not sure how your going to get around this. One thought I'd write a letter within the next few days outlining your frustration. I'd send it to Arpey rather then just a customer service address. You might even consider having your money refunded and taking your biz to another carrier to protest..not that they will care but its an option.

[kc2aqg]

Tommy - do you know something that we don't? How would one of us get a message to Arpey? I would definitely write him a letter concerning my previous experiences with AA.

Wish I knew more of how to help you. Disputing the credit card charge is an option, but I'd expect that Ryanair wouldn't be happy with you at all. If I was in your place, I would choose option C. Better to get to your final destination in a more timely manner. The extra $300 charge for this isn't all that pricey in the end...

[Matt Molnar]

[email protected] :)

[kc2aqg]

No, seriously? LOL :oops:

[T-Bird76]

Tommy - do you know something that we don't? How would one of us get a message to Arpey? I would definitely write him a letter concerning my previous experiences with AA.

Wish I knew more of how to help you. Disputing the credit card charge is an option, but I'd expect that Ryanair wouldn't be happy with you at all. If I was in your place, I would choose option C. Better to get to your final destination in a more timely manner. The extra $300 charge for this isn't all that pricey in the end...

All you have to do Andy is address the letter to AA's corp HQ attn: Gerald Arpey. He won't get it, a staff of Admins will prob open it but chances are they'll forward it to a Director rather then a person in customer service. I did that with Home Depot and was amazed at the results. I heard back from Home Depot's Director of E Commerce, I had an issue with something I ordered from the web. You can always try to email him to AA's email system [email protected]

[adam613]

I seriously doubt you'd get any results from disputing the Ryanair charge with your credit card company. The charge was authorized, and Ryanair didn't do anything wrong. Better to call Ryanair and see if you can get a refund.

[markg]

Better to call Ryanair and see if you can get a refund.

Hell will freeze over before Ryanair will give a refund (even if it was their fault!)

How about taking a different JFK-LHR flight? There's one at 920pm arriving in the 'Row at 925am, then the Ryanair flight leaves at 510pm. I think you might find that AA HAVE to pay you compensation under EU rules! http://www.uknetguide.co.uk/Travel/Arti ... ation.html

Mark

[Matt Molnar]

Update: AA is sending us a voucher worth 10% of our fare (around $100) to compensate for the coupon we will lose if we rebook on another flight. Better than nothing, but not as good as 10% off our new fare which will be more expensive if we take the Iberia option. Also, they're mailing it and who knows when it'll arrive, so it seems we won't get to use it on this trip. :|

Hell will freeze over before Ryanair will give a refund (even if it was their fault!)

That's what I figured, especially since in most of Europe they charge you by the minute like a phone sex line (http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php ... v=call_ctr) to talk to a live person, and email is not an option!

They also do stuff like advertise that you can change the passengers on your itinerary until a few hours before the flight...but they don't mention that it costs like 140 Euro to do that. So I'm not confident that I'll get any money back from them. Will they even give me credit for a future flight?

How about taking a different JFK-LHR flight? There's one at 920pm arriving in the 'Row at 925am, then the Ryanair flight leaves at 510pm. I think you might find that AA HAVE to pay you compensation under EU rules! http://www.uknetguide.co.uk/Travel/Arti ... ation.html

Thanks for the link. Looks like those rules only apply to EU-based carriers unfortunately. If we do the LHR thing that's the flight we'll take, but I'm leaning toward spending the extra $ and getting to Seville 12 hours earlier.

[markg]

I don't think they'll even give you a credit. Ryanair make a profit from canceled flights. To them non-refundable is non-refundable. You can ask for a refund of the taxes you paid, but they will charge you GBP25 for the privilege!