American Airlines gave our seat assignments away

Sorry, but that's not realistic. AA has offered to rebook them in F on a flight 2 hours later; they can't instead demand first class service while seated in the coach cabin. You cant just expect the FA infirst to keep running back to row 37 to check on you. :rolleyes:

 

OP- is there a reason you refuse to take the later booking?

 

Yes. The late arrival time. I would have purchased tickets for that flight originally if I had considered it acceptable.

We purchased airline tickets in October 2017 to Miami for our cruise this month. We made seat choices at the time of purchase.

We paid money not miles for our FC seats in October 2017 when we booked and choose seats.

As you've said it again, it has rather stood out: Choosing seats really doesn't get you very far, and doesn't add a great deal to your chances of boarding the aircraft on the day. So while it's not totally meaningless, it's useful to remember not to put too much store by having a specific seat pre-allocated. If it's your turn to get bumped, you'll get bumped regardless of whether you have a seat number. It's a (common) misconception to think that having a seat number means that you own that seat. This is not a theatre or concert hall ticket.

 

Some may have seen a relevant thread just posted to this board: Interesting blog regarding AA schedule changes.

We will ask for an explanation concerning this experience and forward our complaint to the appropriate agencies.

 

Let it go. It was almost certainly related to a change in aircraft that left the flight with fewer F seats. And I don't know what you hope to gain by complaining to "the appropriate agencies." The airline did nothing illegal so nothing is going to change; your complaint will likely end up in the round file. Read the fine print of the airline's contract of carriage. There is no guarantee to get you to your destination at the exact time booked, flight schedules can change, seats are not guaranteed etc. It's unfortunate, but fly enough and you'll realize sometimes things just happen, and it could have been much worse thsn getting home 2 hours later.

We paid money not miles for our FC seats in October 2017 when we booked and choose seats.

!

 

 

AGAIN did you book First class or Business class????? There is a difference. If you booked First on a 3 cabin plane and they changed to a 2 cabin plane with NO first class and biz was already sold they can't just magically create a first class cabin or seats for you. :rolleyes:

OP bought F seats, which has been discussed ad nauseum in this thread. Routing LAX-MIA, doubtful it was ever a three class plane.

She is taking the later flight, so problem as resolved as it's ever going to be.

We booked our flights more than six months in advance, as soon as AA announced Premium Economy service. We booked seats 13A and 13C, window and aisle, bulkhead and seats 13H and 13K (also window and aisle) on the return flight. The cabin configuration was 2-4-2.

 

A day before our flight, when I logged onto our reservation in order to check in for our outbound flight from MIA to EZE (Miami to Buenos Aires), I discovered that we were moved to 13 D and 13E, in the center section.

 

Once I calmed myself down, I spoke with many reps from AA. They made a variety of excuses, including an “equipment change”. There was none. They then said that the flight schedule had changed. The only change was instead of arriving at 6:59, we were arriving at 7:10.

 

They then suggested that I speak with the agent at check-in, which I did. No luck. She suggested speaking with the gate agent, which I did. She had no idea why our seats were changed and could not get us our original seats, but she managed to get us a window and aisle in the third row of the cabin. Seeing no other solution, we accepted those seats.

 

On the return flight, there were no changes and we were able to get our bulkhead seats, window and aisle.

 

I told the AA rep that I hate American Airlines. I had originally dumped them in favor of U.S. Air, so guess what happened? AA merged with U.S. Air and all my U.S. Air miles reverted back to AA. By the way, I also hate United Airlines.

 

I hope you are able to resolve your issues. Best of luck,

Routing LAX-MIA, doubtful it was ever a three class plane.

 

Not so fast....AA has run 3 class 777s on this route for several years

Yes, I know. However I booked the flight with the new cabin configuration and service began two months prior tto our flight. Therefore there was no change of equipment. It was listed as a 772, which is exactly what we had. Please do not make excuses for AA.

Yes, I know. However I booked the flight with the new cabin configuration and service began two months prior tto our flight. Therefore there was no change of equipment. It was listed as a 772, which is exactly what we had. Please do not make excuses for AA.

 

Eh? I wasn't even responding to anything related to you, you hijacked the thread. I was referring to 6rugrats's comment that referred to the original poster.

 

You clearly have an axe to grind. Telling the AA rep that you hate their company (and saying that you hate United) is a pretty poor way of getting the issue resolved. :rolleyes:

 

On AA I've had countless schedule changes. These have been one or more of either equipment, flight number, timing, routing into another co-terminal etc. any one of these on their own has the ability to mess the seat assignments up. AA have several different 777-200 configurations so no change of plane type doesn't mean there's been no change in equipment.

 

I'll share my pretty extensive experiences of flying AA over the past 10yrs. If you want to ignore it because you "hate" AA then so be it. Fly Aerolineas Argentinas on your next trip there :')

Yes, I know. However I booked the flight with the new cabin configuration and service began two months prior tto our flight. Therefore there was no change of equipment. It was listed as a 772, which is exactly what we had. Please do not make excuses for AA.

Without making excuses (because I don't know what happened), it's worth remembering that there could have been all sorts of other reasons for what happened.

 

The timeline that you describe is that you booked as soon as PE was announced, six months before your flight and four months before its actual introduction. Clearly, at the time that you booked the PE cabin configuration was loaded.

 

But because it sounds like you didn't get any notification that your seats had changed, you probably have no idea when, how or how often your seats were changed between the time of booking and the time (six months later) that you discovered that your seats had been changed. One possibility is that the PE cabin was withdrawn and then reinstated, or withdrawn from your particular flight and then reinstated. If either of those things had occurred, you could have lost your original seat allocations.

 

It could also be that the flight was cancelled and replaced by another flight, either with a different flight number (with a further change later) or simply to another flight with the same flight number. The latter type of change would have been particularly invisible to an outsider, even though it would show up as a flight change to anyone looking at the history of the schedules. These types of schedule change can also cause you to lose your original seat allocations.

 

All you know is that by the day before the flight, the configuration in the system was the same configuration that was displayed to you when you booked. That does not mean that there were no changes in the interim; you and I simply have no way of knowing. The agents could well have been correct to say that they could see some form of equipment change, even though in the end you ended up on the same configuration as you'd originally seen.

 

It all goes to show that so far as seat allocations are concerned, there are no guarantees or (in truth) even promises. Most of the time, everything is fine. Sometimes it will go wrong; if you fly enough, everything will happen to you at some stage. On every airline. Getting upset or telling the agent that you hate the company that they work for doesn't fix the problem; in fact, it's likely to hinder you from getting a good solution because it's likely to predispose the agent to help you to the minimum extent possible. In contrast, good people skills can work wonders.

People skills would also apply to airline personnel.

This thread today came to mind as I spent the day trying to figure out schedule changes. United came first. They cancelled a great connecting flight we had, returning from Europe, and gave us a new flight with a 6 hr layover at O’Hara! That was the “only” change, but they used the event to reseat us on all the other 5 flights on the itinerary! Outside of looking for alternative routing to avoid the long layover, I had to go back in and attempt to get our original seats backs, some of which had been given to others!

 

Then, I checked my domestic AA flight, in early August, to make sure it was still fine. Up popped a message that said there had been a change. Quite the change. My connecting flight is now leaving 10 minutes before my originating flight arrives. That’s how the reservations still reads. After about a ten minute discussion with their Gold Desk member, looking at all bad possibilities, she replied “ Look, at this point there are two major system wide schedule changes planned between now and August. I would do nothing now but wait until June, to see what occurs with the other changes. That may be better than making changes you don’t really want and may be stuck with later!” The comments seems in line with above postings on schedule change timelines.

People skills would also apply to airline personnel.

Yes, and many of them are fabulous at it. Of course, once the passenger starts hurling insults, they have absolutely no reason to deploy the skills that might make the passenger feel good; but it's often the time for them to switch instead to the skills that are deliberately designed to wind the passenger up to the maximum. Especially if the passenger is one of that breed that thinks that they are being mortally offended unless everyone immediately accedes to their "gimme whaddye want"-type demands.

Yes, and many of them are fabulous at it. Of course, once the passenger starts hurling insults, they have absolutely no reason to deploy the skills that might make the passenger feel good; but it's often the time for them to switch instead to the skills that are deliberately designed to wind the passenger up to the maximum. Especially if the passenger is one of that breed that thinks that they are being mortally offended unless everyone immediately accedes to their "gimme whaddye want"-type demands.

 

 

"Gimmie whaddye want" simply means "give us what we booked!" There are no excuses for the customer service problems with AA and United (and to a lesser degree with Delta). Trying to blame the victim (this would be the customer) seems to be the new trend in the USA. That being said, we do feel that when dealing with the counter folks at airports....charm is the best approach. But the customer service folks on the phone can be a real challenge :(.

 

Hank

"Gimmie whaddye want" simply means "give us what we booked!" There are no excuses for the customer service problems with AA and United (and to a lesser degree with Delta). Trying to blame the victim (this would be the customer) seems to be the new trend in the USA. That being said, we do feel that when dealing with the counter folks at airports....charm is the best approach.

Leaving aside the technical point that the passenger has no entitlement to what they booked, it's still never helpful to tell the person from whom you're asking for help that you hate them or their employer! It's almost a guaranteed way to exacerbate your own difficulties if the agent (as they often do) consequently decides not to help you. Pointing out that practical truth is a long way from blaming the passenger for what the airline has done. Hence you and I share the same strategy, often with positive results.

"Gimmie whaddye want" simply means "give us what we booked!"

 

And when "what we booked" doesn't exist anymore, the entitlement anger often turns to "well, go and put it back".

 

You had a great connection on flight 123 connecting to flight 456. And then get rebooked onto 789 instead of 456. But 456 doesn't fly that route anymore, and 789 is the best they can do. But it's "I want to fly at that time, just as I planned."

 

The right for an airline to change flights, routings and times is clearly a part of the contract of carriage. That one you agreed to when you bought the ticket. Don't like it....1-800-NETJETS (not really their number).

After about a ten minute discussion with their Gold Desk member, looking at all bad possibilities, she replied “ Look, at this point there are two major system wide schedule changes planned between now and August. I would do nothing now but wait until June, to see what occurs with the other changes. That may be better than making changes you don’t really want and may be stuck with later!” The comments seems in line with above postings on schedule change timelines.

 

IMO, this is terrible advice and is the opposite of what the Executive Platinum desk told me for flights that were booked quite a way out! Their words were something along the lines of "there may well be other schedule changes but we might as well get you on the best that works you now". I was pretty happy with that result as the ticket they moved me to was slightly more convenient but I disregarded it as it had a $1500 premium!

 

For the sake of a quick phone call you might as well take the best you can now and switch over if there is another schedule change. There's no guarantee that a large scale schedule change will affect your flights.

We just flew AA for our cruise in February. We booked “basic economy” at a ridiculous price (Charlotte is terrible for prices) but we are Advantage members. We were fine going down as they gave us decent seats but on the return flight they had us separated and put each of us in the middle of the three seats on each side of the plane. The couple in my side of the plane were separated with me in between so thankfully we switched seats and through another nice person who then swapped isle seats with me my DH and I were together. This felt like such a blatant attempt to gauge us into paying for seat assignments. [emoji34]

 

 

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The couple you were seated between paid more to avoid basic economy and then booked the aisle and window with the hope that the plane wouldn't be full so that they could hopefully have an empty middle. I do this all the time.

 

I don’t understand your seat complaint. It has nothing to do with OP’s problem. In addition, you chose to book Basic Economy, which clearly states you will be assigned seats at no charge at check-in. No one is “forcing” you to pay for a seat. If you want to chose a specific seat, you have to pay when you book Basic Economy.

Sometimes, you get what you pay for.

I agree :)

We just flew AA for our cruise in February. We booked “basic economy” at a ridiculous price (Charlotte is terrible for prices) but we are Advantage members. We were fine going down as they gave us decent seats but on the return flight they had us separated and put each of us in the middle of the three seats on each side of the plane. The couple in my side of the plane were separated with me in between so thankfully we switched seats and through another nice person who then swapped isle seats with me my DH and I were together. This felt like such a blatant attempt to gauge us into paying for seat assignments. [emoji34]

 

 

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I would not say they were trying to gouge you, you selected BE due to cost and nothing more.

 

 

I do not blame you for selecting the fare basis you did, then one needs to understand the rules associated with that fare basis. The major rules are made known, usually, before final payment so there are no surprises in the end and at boarding.

 

Quite often when we fly, we hear people as far down the line as gate check-in say 'we did not know that???

 

As others have pointed out, we get what we pay for, more often than not.

 

Those of us who cruise regularly, up to every three (3) years are a bit more knowledgeable/sophisticated than the casual traveler and to pretend that we are anything less is just funny... and we know the essential restrictions on airlines just as much as we know many of the restrictions and pricing of our chosen cruise lines.

 

 

bon voyage

People skills would also apply to airline personnel.

 

LOL, yes. They need to have a palm card for any of the thousands of personalities (or combination thereof) they will encounter on any given flight on any given day....

 

Yes, let us blame the agents for the mis-behaviour of passengers, although there are times when agents can be the blame, IME it is usually the passenger who presents the attitude challenges which escalates when they do not get their way.

 

bon voyage

I don’t understand your seat complaint. It has nothing to do with OP’s problem. In addition, you chose to book Basic Economy, which clearly states you will be assigned seats at no charge at check-in. No one is “forcing” you to pay for a seat. If you want to chose a specific seat, you have to pay when you book Basic Economy.

Sometimes, you get what you pay for.

 

Did you mean to say in this case/fare 'Sometimes, you get 'more than' what you pay for? If not, accept what you have paid for.

 

bon voyage

My point was there were two couples who it seemed they purposely did not seat together. We rearranged our seats anyway.

 

 

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My point was there were two couples who it seemed they purposely did not seat together. We rearranged our seats anyway.

 

 

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You have no idea whether AA intentionally seated the other couple apart. Lots of couples book then aisle and window combo in hopes of the middle going empty. Then if someone shows up for the middle then one from the pair will generally give up their better seat and scoot to the middle. AAhas no evil person behind the curtain busting up families. They are in the business of making money and one way they have to maximize money is to sell the more desirable windows, aisle and exit row seats. You opted to save your money and you got what was left. You were lucky that you got seated between a couple that was okay moving. You could have easily been sat between two people who didn’t know each other that paid for the window aisle. You got lucky so I really think you should stop whining. Edited March 22, 2018 by nolatravelgirl

Thank you so much for your kindness. The world needs more people like you.

 

 

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Thank you so much for your kindness. The world needs more people like you.

Here on Cruise Air, you'll get a lot of accurate, unvarnished advice from experienced travellers. CC definitely needs people who give that.

 

And that's what you've just been given: if you won't pay the little bit extra to be able to choose your seats when booking, then a middle seat is what you're likely to get. If you want more, pay for it.