[VinnyVegas]

To:
American Airlines Customer Relations, P.O. Box 619619, DFW Airport, TX 75261-9616
United States Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (Separate Cover), 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20590
Office of Aviation Consumer Protection, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20590
AirlineComplaints.org (Separate Cover)

RE: American Airlines Record Locator XXXXX

Good Day,

This letter is in reference to American Airlines Record Locator XXXXX, however, that Record Locator number is no longer valid in the American Airlines app.

2 Tickets were purchased for round trip airfare from Tampa (TPA) to Las Vegas (LAS). Our outbound flight had no problems. We departed TPA to LAS via PHX on 08/14/2024 at 7:20 am with no issue. Our flight arrived in PHX on time and we departed PHX on time and arrived in LAS on time.
Our return flight LAS to TPA via DFW was scheduled for 8/22/2024 at 9:01 am. At approximately 8:45 am while at the gate, we were told the flight had been cancelled. We were unsure what to do at this point and looked around for someone to talk to. We could not locate an agent and we opened the American Airlines app and began looking for different flights. At approx. 9:15 am, we saw, through the app, that our flight had been automatically rebooked from LAS to TPA via DCA leaving at approximately 11:15 am (unfortunately, the flight has been removed from my app and I cannot locate exact times). Our original flight had us in seats 15 E&F from TPA to DFW. The new flight split us up to seats 21E and 30B. Again, I am trying to do this off memory alone so if the specifics are off, I apologize, but I know that my wife and I were both rebooked into middle seats. Anyway, my wife did not have any complaints with seat 30B other than the fact that she had to fly by herself. I, on the other hand, had a horrific experience. I boarded and was seated with a man approximately 300 lbs in the aisle seat but there was no one on the window side yet. The plane was full and the fasten seat belt sign came on. I thought this would be fine due to the open seat, however, the flight attendant came by and said “Don’t get too comfortable, the last passenger will be boarding soon”. About 2 minutes later, the last passenger boards and as he is walking down the aisle, my jaw dropped. This man was WELL OVER 400 lbs. I am not a big guy, but I am not small either. I weigh 205 lbs. So in my row, there is a 400+ lbs man on the window, me (205 lbs) and a 300+ lbs man on the aisle. I was visibly upset at this point but did not say a word. The flight attendant looked at me and said, “You’ll be fine, ok?” I should have at this point asked for a jump seat in the back or asked her to switch places with me. So there I am in my seat with ½ of the seat taken up by the man in the window seat and ¼ of my seat taken up by the man in aisle seat. This left me with literally ¼ of a seat to travel 4.5 hours across the US in. Upon landing and exiting the plane, the same flight attendant looked at me while leaving, smiled, and said, “Awe, see, you made it”. Do not patronize me… Once in the terminal, we walked over to the American Airlines Customer Service desk and I asked them if there were two seats together on the flight from DCA to TPA. The representative said “Yes, we have 21 E&F available”. I said, “Great, can you change our seats to those?” She stated that there will be a fee for them. What? We were originally in 15 E&F from DFW to TPA and now you are going to charge us for 21 E&F from DCA? I asked for a supervisor. He came and said there is nothing he can do, he cannot override the system and that if I want the seats, I have to pay for them. This is completely unacceptable and I cannot believe this is the way American Airlines treats customers. Why can a supervisor at the airport not have the ability to correct an issue that was caused by American Airlines auto-rebooking? I voiced my displeasure and told my wife to go ahead and pay for the seats because I WAS NOT GOING TO GO THROUGH what I just did with the last flight. With our new seats, that we should not have paid for, we boarded the flight to Tampa and arrived at approximately midnight, almost 6 hours after original scheduled arrival time. This meant the ride we had previously arranged was unable to pick us up and instead, we had to get an $80 uber to our home in Odessa, Florida. After contacting American about our experience, my wife and I were given 7,500 bonus miles as a “tangible apology” for the issues we experienced. I looked into what does 7,500 bonus miles get me and I found that a one way ticket from TPA to LAS cost about 25,000 miles. So, in other words, “here is enough to get you nothing. You are just a number in our system and our treatment of you and your experience with us means nothing. We do not need to make anything right by you and you will like it”. I cannot and will not simply let this airline ruin peoples travel. I will at every opportunity make sure that I let anyone I come into contact with know what a poor job American Airlines does and that they do not, under any stretch of the imagination, care about their customers.

Airline passengers deserve to have rights. You did not provide the experience and services you were contracted to in the manner in which was expected. I demand that you do better and make things right.

If you would like to discuss or believe that I am wrong in my feelings about the situation, you can contact me at the number and address below.

Thank you,
NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD

[AACHAPTER11]

Hi, I'm a lifetime Platinum on American (flew over 3Million miles). Recently, American, in their infinite wisdom, added another level of status that diluted my benefits. Does anyone know if there is a class-action lawsuit against American, regarding this? I've tried contacting customer service a couple of times. Their weak responses (after weeks of waiting) is basically "there is nothing we can do". I've stopped flying American whenever possible since there is little benefit ( I was with them for over 30 years). They've been in a downward spiral in terms of customer-service for more than 10 years.