[ChrisH]

I am appalled at this reply by American. I used to work for American Eagle airlines, which is American's wholy owned regional carrier. I left over a month ago to pursue other career options as I could not stand to work in the airline industry any longer. I felt as though American as a whole, AMR Corp., was a terrible company, especially at the location I worked, and this confirms that thought.

It DOES NOT take 2-3 reservations to fill a seat. This is misleading by American and they are hoping that the typical passenger will not catch on. The assumption that you will take from this verbiage is that it takes 2-3 reservations PER seat. It may take 2-3 reservations to fill a seat, but not per seat on the aircraft. Yes, there are no shows, but not to the point that a 50 seat airplane must be booked with 100-150 reservations just to fill it. That is absurd!

The TSA has no rules or policies in place regarding when passengers or luggage must be checked in. These policies are airline policies. They are in place for good reason and do make sense, but can be broken. I've checked many passengers in, along with their luggage, after the cut off time. American Airlines' system is designed to lock the agent out from processing luggage after cutoff, however, a supervisor or manager can overrule this. Given the situation, this could have been done with the original poster. Instead, the supervisor, from the story, decided to have an attitude and be hostile, from the beginning. The reason, unfortunately, goes back to the overbooking. They knew they would now have no shows for the flight, opening seats, avoiding an oversale and thus preventing American from having to provide compensation. It is very obvious that they wish not to provide any compensation based on their further responses. Unfortunately, despite the $3K you paid to American for tickets, they used you and your family in this situation to avoid an oversale.

To the original poster; Did the kiosk machine print a paper out when it informed you to see an agent? If so, do you still have this paper? I could be wrong, but I want to say that this paper will have a time stamped on it. If so, this may be the proof you need to show that you were attempting to check in, per American Airline instructions, from one of their agents, at the machine and in fact, were there in plenty of time. Beyond that, unfortunately, the kiosk machine usually saves no record of time of use unless the check in process is completed at the machine. If it refers you to an agent, it will not show that you attempted check in at the machine. American's records will show an attempt to check in with an agent at the cut off time, unfortunately, not helping your cause.