| rev:text
| - Avoid American Airlines, especially if you have a connecting flight.
My wife, myself, and our dog were scheduled to fly from Baltimore to Las Vegas in September 2015 with a change of planes in Philadelphia. We booked on USAir, which had been acquired by but not yet integrated with American. There was to be 44 minutes between flights, and the Philadelphia to Las Vegas flight was the last of the day. The Baltimore departure was slightly delayed as the airplane came in late, supposedly for air traffic reasons. Before arriving in Philadelphia, the Los Angeles-bound passengers were advised that their flight would be held for them. For the Las Vegas-bound passengers, the flight crew just said "good luck". We had 15 minutes, raced from Terminal A to C, and along with other Las Vegas-bound customers found the aircraft's door had been closed but it had not pulled away. Given the consideration given to the Los Angeles-bound customers, we and others found the lack of equal courtesy given us to be troubling--especially as this was the last flight out for the night. AA customer service checked around for other flights; there were none with seats available. Even more troubling, AA customer service told us that no overnight accommodations could be made available for any of us, even though it was AA's fault by not holding the connecting flight by five minutes! One AA agent, who initially said he could not get us out until the next night (thus to cause us to miss a family gathering) eventually found us seats on a 5:20 a.m. flight. (More on the problems on this later in this review.)
As it was now after 10 p.m., we had to scramble to find a hotel that would accept pets. To do that, we used Hotels.com to find one that would. We booked the airport Aloft Hotel through Hotels.com. (More on this later as well.)
The next morning (after four hours' sleep), we arrived at Terminal A for our 5:20 a.m. AA flight in adequate time. As it was to be an AA flight, not a USAir flight, we arrived at Terminal A. We found that the flight was already two hours delayed and that we had been switched to a USAir flight to Los Angeles, to further connect to Las Vegas. We had to walk outside from Terminal A to Terminal B, with all luggage and dog, to check in at USAir and then walk outside again from Terminal B to Terminal A with carry-on bags and dog to catch the flight. Now, we are 68 years old and this was a bit much.
After returning home, we began an email correspondence with AA Customer Service which finally ended in February 2016. They initially expressed that, as a courtesy, they might refund the hotel cost. They asked for copies of tickets and invoice; we provided those. They didn't like the Hotels.com invoice; they wanted one from the Aloft Hotel, but as we had no incidental expenses at the hotel there was no bill. I explained that the bill was a Hotels.com bill. After speaking with the Aloft accounting department, they offered their phone number to AA to attest that I had stayed the night in question. Finally, speaking with AA Customer Service today, the agent said that they just do not honor (reimburse) Hotels.com invoices.
What an inconsiderate experience this has been--all around--with American Air. We will avoid them in the future and advise others to do the same, particularly if they rely on connecting flights.Avoid American Airlines, especially if you have a connecting flight.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)