AA Changed My Award Itinerary

[Andrew]

My wife and I each received emails from American Airlines last night about changes to our itinerary.

We were flying BOS-DFW and then onto OGG. Two award seats booked in business/first for both flights.

Our 5:00 am flight out of Boston was scheduled to arrive into DFW 7:58 am. Flight to OGG was at 9:00 am

Apparently the BOS-DFW flight is now arriving at 8:41 am (still leaving at 5:00 am)

They rebooked us on BOS-PHX, and then onto OGG. Leaving from BOS at 9:40 am and arriving to OGG at 6:25 pm (we were initially supposed to arrive at 1:35 PM)

Aside from getting into Maui (OGG) five hours later AA operates a Boeing 757-200 on the PHX to OGG flight as opposed to the Boeing 763 used for the DFW-BOS flight, which is a superior business/first product.

Getting in 5 hours later is an inconvenience for sure, but seeing as we are going for a relaxing trip it is hardly a huge issue issue. The bigger issue is that I purposely booked the DFW-OGG flight because I knew the aircraft for this flight was the superior business/first product.

I very likely would not have paid the 67.5k miles per seat to fly on business/first on the 757-200. How should I approach acquiring compensation for this schedule change and aircraft change?

 

[smittytabb]

My wife and I each received emails from American Airlines last night about changes to our itinerary.

We were flying BOS-DFW and then onto OGG. Two award seats booked in business/first for both flights.

Our 5:00 am flight out of Boston was scheduled to arrive into DFW 7:58 am. Flight to OGG was at 9:00 am

Apparently the BOS-DFW flight is now arriving at 8:41 am (still leaving at 5:00 am)

They rebooked us on BOS-PHX, and then onto OGG. Leaving from BOS at 9:40 am and arriving to OGG at 6:25 pm (we were initially supposed to arrive at 1:35 PM)

Aside from getting into Maui (OGG) five hours later AA operates a Boeing 757-200 on the PHX to OGG flight as opposed to the Boeing 763 used for the DFW-BOS flight, which is a superior business/first product.

Getting in 5 hours later is an inconvenience for sure, but seeing as we are going for a relaxing trip it is hardly a huge issue issue. The bigger issue is that I purposely booked the DFW-OGG flight because I knew the aircraft for this flight was the superior business/first product.

I very likely would not have paid the 67.5k miles per seat to fly on business/first on the 757-200. How should I approach acquiring compensation for this schedule change and aircraft change?

I have had a schedule change for almost every single AA itinerary this fall. I am an AA EXP so I have flown with them a lot and it has been the most I have ever seen. It is because they are getting all the schedules in sync with US. With the schedule change of this kind, you can create another itinerary and you should be able to cancel and get refunded your money perhaps, but other than that, what kind of compensation were you expecting?

I was able to change some of my flights to having stopovers that are no longer allowed or I was able to change some flights to another date a day before, but I have no idea if that is b/c I am EXP or not. I have had to do a lot of creative changes to the many trips I so carefully planned. It happens. See if they will let you fly to DFW the day before. You'll have to pay for a hotel room, but you might be able to get back on the original flight. Look up all the options that you can that you are willing to do before you call.

 

[Andrew]

I have had a schedule change for almost every single AA itinerary this fall. I am an AA EXP so I have flown with them a lot and it has been the most I have ever seen. It is because they are getting all the schedules in sync with US. With the schedule change of this kind, you can create another itinerary and you should be able to cancel and get refunded your money perhaps, but other than that, what kind of compensation were you expecting?

I was able to change some of my flights to having stopovers that are no longer allowed or I was able to change some flights to another date a day before, but I have no idea if that is b/c I am EXP or not. I have had to do a lot of creative changes to the many trips I so carefully planned. It happens. See if they will let you fly to DFW the day before. You'll have to pay for a hotel room, but you might be able to get back on the original flight. Look up all the options that you can that you are willing to do before you call.

We are flying out the morning of Christmas Eve so leaving a day early is not possible because of a work conflict.

As I said, the schedule change that results in us getting in five hours later than our original itinerary isn't a huge deal as we will be arriving for a two-week trip to the various Hawaiian islands. I was more upset that the schedule change has us flying out of PHX instead of DFW which will result in lesser business class cabin (seat especially).

Hoping maybe to get some miles credited back to me for this inconvenience. And yes, I know complaining about a "lesser' business class cabin is probably is about as "first world problems" as it can get. Haven't had many preemptive schedule changes like this in the past so I was just curios what I acquire get for the inconvenience.

 

[Matt S NYC]

I have had a schedule change for almost every single AA itinerary this fall. I am an AA EXP so I have flown with them a lot and it has been the most I have ever seen. It is because they are getting all the schedules in sync with US. With the schedule change of this kind, you can create another itinerary and you should be able to cancel and get refunded your money perhaps, but other than that, what kind of compensation were you expecting?

I was able to change some of my flights to having stopovers that are no longer allowed or I was able to change some flights to another date a day before, but I have no idea if that is b/c I am EXP or not. I have had to do a lot of creative changes to the many trips I so carefully planned. It happens. See if they will let you fly to DFW the day before. You'll have to pay for a hotel room, but you might be able to get back on the original flight. Look up all the options that you can that you are willing to do before you call.

+1 on all my AA flights getting changed for the year. I just got a notification last night that my 6:45 pm flight on Christmas eve from JFK-SFO was moved to 4 something and my return on 12/28 got changed from a redeye to a 2:00 pm! Hopefully next year when the merger is truly complete there won't be so much schedule changing!

 

[smittytabb]

We are flying out the morning of Christmas Eve so leaving a day early is not possible because of a work conflict.

As I said, the schedule change that results in us getting in five hours later than our original itinerary isn't a huge deal as we will be arriving for a two-week trip to the various Hawaiian islands. I was more upset that the schedule change has us flying out of PHX instead of DFW which will result in lesser business class cabin (seat especially).

Hoping maybe to get some miles credited back to me for this inconvenience. And yes, I know complaining about a "lesser' business class cabin is probably is about as "first world problems" as it can get. Haven't had many preemptive schedule changes like this in the past so I was just curios what I acquire get for the inconvenience.

I would be surprised if you could get miles for the inconvenience. Basically they are redoing the entire schedule and many, many customers and flights are impacted. Let us know how it goes.

 

[Barb]

I got notification last night as well for two schedule changes. Nothing drastic. But still, I have never had the amount of schedule changes and cancelled flights that I have had this year. And not just AA. United, South African, Virgin Atlantic to name a few.