It was a simple one way from Savannah to Los Angeles via the Dallas hub. I awoke at 4:30 AM for my one hour drive to SAV with only one boarding pass in my pocket. When I tried to check in, I was unable to get my boarding pass for DFW to LAX. “Strange”, I thought. As a top tier member with American, I was not notified of an upgrade either. That’s not unusual out of Dallas, but the message I got the day before when printing my boarding pass said that I could not be added to the upgrade list and to see a gate agent. Something was up.
When I arrived at Savannah, I was given my second boarding pass and headed to the gate for departure. Shortly thereafter, my phone went off with a call from AA telling me that my flight had been cancelled and to hold for an agent. I knew better than that, hung up, and called the Executive Platinum phone line. The flight was indeed cancelled, my lunch plans were ruined, and I was placed on a 1:20 PM flight arriving in LAX at 2:40 PM.
Upon arrival at DFW, I asked the gate agent where my 1:20 flight was scheduled to depart from so that I could go wait it out at the closest Admirals Club. She said that a new flight had been added departing at the original 10:30 depart time and she gave me a boarding pass in the back of the bus. The aircraft type was different and I lost my exit row aisle seat. It was replaced with a middle. When I got to my new gate for the 10:30 departure, I was not even on the upgrade list? What’s that about? I asked to be added, but no upgrade for Rick this time. I was squished in between two big guys. Things don’t always go as planned do they.
I wonder when they really knew the original flight was not going to operate. My guess was the day before. The announcement on-board the replacement flight was that the original aircraft was not capable of making the trip and that they replaced it this morning with a different aircraft at the last minute. If I had not checked with the gate agent on arrival at Dallas, I never would have known about the replacement flight. I did not receive a notification from American. Maybe they felt that by just pushing me back to the later flight, I’d be OK. A text message would have been nice. There has been discussions of AA taking special care of their top tier fliers.
This one just didn’t feel right to me. The lack of a boarding pass the day before, the lack of notification about a replacement flight, the reassignment to a middle seat…
I’ve leave it to you guys, should I “send the letter”? Or just let this one go?
