[Namas1982]

Between the 21st and 23rd of January 2008 myself and my partner had without a doubt the most stressful travel experience of our life courtesy of American Airlines.

On the 21st we were due to leave Quito, Ecuador with our final destination Sydney Australia a day and a half later. When we went to check in with American Airlines in Quito we were informed one of our flights (which we had called and confirmed two days earlier) didn't exist. Subsequently they had to change one of our flights (Miami to jfk) they left us one hour to pick up our bags, declare customs and make this flight. Needless to say we missed this flight. There were no more flights until 7.30 that night, we had to be in JFK well before that to catch the only connecting flight Air Tahiti Nui was running for approximately one week from JFK to LAX. On top of this because we checked our bags but missed the flight our bags had gone onto LAX (I asked three seperate American Airlines staff to be sure and they all assured me my bags would be in LAX).

At JFK in order to make our international flight with Air Tahiti Nui we had to purchase a ticket to LAX which came to close to $800. We also had accomodation to the value of $100 in LA paid for which we lost.

When we got to LAX our bags were nowhere to be found, after 4 hours of running between desks and airline companies the response from AA was you're still in transit we can't help you.

Both me and my girlfriend are full time students, this is a phenomenal amount of money to us, American Airlines didn't even have the decency to offer us a discount let alone a free ticket on one of their planes that undoubtedly had spare seats anyway.

Thankyou for reading this.
-Tim Namour

[Silent Bob]

If you have your original itinerary that shows a flight did exist, then AA MUST get you to your destination, with enough time to make any and all connections because one hour just won't do. If the flight existed two days before and you confirmed that, plus you have an itinerary, then yea you need to talk with someone and get reimbursed for the extra money you spent.