Complaint Review: AAdvantage

On December 12th, I went through AAdvantage to redeem 19,700 airline miles towards a 2 night hotel stay in Chicago for December 28th and 29th so that my girlfriend and I could visit the city.

Unfortunately my girlfriend's older brother passed away, and we could no longer attend due to funeral.  On December 24th, I cancelled my Amtrak train tickets, and then called AAdvantage to call regarding my hotel.  I spoke with a man named Jonathan, and I explained the situation to ask what my options were.  He told me that the only thing I could do was cancel.

I then called the hotel to ask if they could do anything, and they said it was already showing as cancelled in their system, and that since it was done through a 3rd party, they couldn't do anything.

I called AAdvantage back to again ask if anything could be done.  I spoke to a friendly man named Skyler who said that since I was calling in advance, I'd have the option to pick different dates for a fee of $35.  I was glad to hear about the option, and stunned that Jonathan hadn't provided it when I asked him what could be done.

I proceeded to tell Skylar that I would like to reschedule, and he began to look at the system.  He then told me that unfortunately since I had called to cancel my hotel stay, that there was nothing he could do.  I didn't call to cancel, I called to see what my options were - and cancellation was the only option presented.  Skylar said he would have Jonathan call me back within 30 minutes as he was a supervisor.

Jonathan never called.  On December 26th, I called again, and spoke to a rude woman (can't recall the name) who told me I could send a complaint.

I mailed a complaint to their office, and also opened a complaint with the Fort Worth, Texas BBB.  The BBB complaint went nowhere, and it was closed as resolved.  I wasn't given the option to say it had been resolved, I'm sure it was something on the Aadvantage side after I had been sent an email from a customer service specialist saying there was nothing they could do.

Through the entire experience, I was astounded by the fact that I had only been given the option to reschedule after they cancelled my hotel stay - and that at that point they claimed that it was too late.  I could not believe that there was no one in their organization that would admit that they messed up, and take steps resolve the situation.

I realize that this occurred months ago - its just that today I noticed some American Airlines junk mail and it set me off again.