[ExecPlat_Randy]

I cannot believe what I am going through with American Airlines... I am an Executive Platinum member of AA with millions of miles on AA under my belt... I have to say that 2008 has been the worst year I have ever experienced flying AA!

I started this week's journey in Los Angeles on flight 202 headed for Bogota, Colombia via Miami... Somehow, I arrived in Bogota without my luggage. I know why did I check a bag.... A very poor decision! Anyways, I arrived in Bogota on Monday evening without my bag. I file the necessary paperwork and am told that I should contact them and follow up on my bag. I do as they asked... I am told on Tuesday morning that my bag was located in Miami and was on the early morning flight 915 to Bogota and would be delivered to me. Well, somehow my bag didn't make the flight... I was told it would be on the afternoon flight 913... When I call to follow up on my bag location, I am told that somehow they have lost track of my bag again and "hopefully it will show up in Bogota". Tuesday evening, I check with AA to see when my bag will be delivered and am not given any information...

Now, let me back up and say that I paid $3,500.00 for this first class airfare to be in Bogota for business.

Tuesday evening I have to go shopping for clothes and toiletry replacements... American says that they can reimburse me up to $100 for my expenses... I don't if any of you have ever shopped for business attire, but $100 doesn't even begin to cover it, even when you are shopping in Bogota, Colombia.

After returning to the hotel from purchasing clothes, I check my bag status on AA.com... it shows that my bag has been located in Bogota and will be delivered to my hotel that night.

I wake up Wednesday morning (today) expecting that my bag was delivered overnight.... it was not! and AA had no explanation... they tell me that I am welcome to go back to the airport and pick it up if I would like to... I make arrangements for someone from my hotel to go pick up the bag. Then comes the fun part... AA then tries to extort $30K pesos to release my bag to the hotel driver! Yes, you read this correctly... Thirty Thousand Pesos...

They lose my bag, lie about when I will get it back, then when it is located they try to extort more money from me!

I rarely ever use the word "never"... but I am to the point of saying that I will never fly American Airlines again.

[sns0130]

Something similar happened to me in July only AA offered $75 combined for me & my daughter. We got the run around for 3 days with no one at American knowing where my bag was.

[ExecPlat_Randy]

Me again... to add to my previous post... When I finally had a chance to open my bag Wednesday evening, I found that it had not only been gone thru but I was missing things... Missing 2 external harddrives, 2 dress shirts, 4 ties, and a pair of shoes!

After I contacted Customer Relations, prior to getting my bag, here was their response...

Thank you for contacting Customer Relations via AA.com. Please accept my sincere
apology for your most recent experience when traveling with us. I know you are
greatly disappointed, considering this is not the first time you have been in Bogota
without your luggage.
I am especially concerned with your comments regarding our personnel's handling of
your request for assistance. Every day we depend on our people to leave our customers
with a positive impression. The expense of selecting, training and motivating our
personnel is of little value if we then fail to satisfy our customers. I am
disappointed that you have not received the treatment you deserve and we expect our
employees to deliver, especially to a very valued Executive Platinum member.
We appreciate your valuable feedback, and we welcome the opportunity to take a close
look at how the situation was handled and identify ways we can ensure a similar issue
is not repeated in the future. A copy of your comments regarding your experience has
been forwarded to key management personnel at the Bogota airport for an internal
review of our procedures. Thank you for taking the time to bring this to our
attention so we may address these sub-standard service issues.
We will continue to search for your luggage. In the meantime, please contact the
local number you received for a status report. Or, if more convenient for you, please
use the Delayed Baggage Status tool on AA.com. Click on the following link to access
that web page:
http://www.aa.com/aa/travelInformati...inderAccess.do
Again, Mr. Haines, we apologize for this great inconvenience. We'll do our very best
to locate your luggage as quickly as possible. I hope you will also give us another
chance to restore your faith in our ability to meet your travel needs.

Sincerely,
L. Brown
Customer Relations
American Airlines

How am I supposed to give them another chance? Isn't that like sticking a needle in your eye, pulling it out, and then sticking it back in just to make that what you felt was indeed pain....

[ExecPlat_Randy]

Let's finish this journey the good ol' American Airlines way.... We were more than 2 hours delayed leaving Bogota yesterday... but all was good because everything in Miami was late too... We land, run thru customs, wait at security (they only had 2 lines open) then rush to gate... I make it just in time for boarding... I have a full fare first class ticket... I get in line like the good boy I am... I still don't get those people who jump up and run to the front when First Class is called knowing they are not anywhere near First Class... The girl scans my boarding pass and it says "seat invalid"! We stepped to the side for to explain to me that "someone" rebooked my itinerary for me and had me leaving at 8:15am Saturday morning and not on this Friday evening flight... My ears turned red, and I commenced to communicate very strongly with this person... She called her supervisor who was a little more helpful but not much... Executive Platinum desk said that I should be grateful that I was on the 8:15am flight... I said to the lady, that she should be grateful that I am not standing in front of her at that moment... after about 30 minutes of bantering back and forth and them showing me that they had seats available on the flight, and more so, they had my seat still available, they finally refunded that final leg of my trip and rebooked it using those same funds at the counter... so, now we are supposedly ready for take-off... The plane backs away towards the tarmack and we sit... Pilot says something was wrong with the "weights and measures" Once we do take off, we arrive in LAX at 2:30AM. Thank God I am finally home.