Complaint Review: American Airlines AAdvantage

I received a call from a Customer Service Rep, who was very professional and sounded nice. She told me that my reward points were going to cancel on Sunday the 10th of July, 2016. She told me I could extend the time for a fee of $150.00. I have a lot of points and wanted to use them this fall for our vacation so I begrudgingly paid the fee.

I expressed my disappointment to her about this transaction and THEN she told me about other options. One option is to join the AA Dining program, when you dine at an affiliated restaurant you earn more points and extend your time by 18 months.

I told her to cancel my transaction as I would just do that and I signed up for the program while I was on the phone with her. (I found a place in spring hill TN where I could buy a burger meal for under $10 and get the same benefit.)
At that time she started to back pedal and tell me it might not make it in time, the transaction may be delayed and I would lose my points etc... it told her no, cancel it.

AFTER all of this she told me, the transaction already went through and it was non-refundable. I told her she should have told me about the other options first, and she certainly should have told me it was non-refundable before I agreed to it. She claimed that she would have a supervisor "try" to do a refund. After several minutes of waiting (and she came on the line every minute or two to tell me she was still waiting on her supervisor, which was nice and professional)

I was told that the supervisor could not do a refund. First a non-refundable item is a policy, not a requirement. I was very upset and I told the woman so. She apologized for her mistakes in not telling me things up front and "swore" she was not trying to be deceptive. I found the choice of words interesting as I had not accused her of lying or any attempt at deception at all up to this point.

I told her that I would contact my credit card company and tell them to NOT pay the charge. She really did not care whether I did or not. The only reason I did not was due to my wife calming me down a bit and saying "Let's just use the points up and then Never use them again". So we will, you got my money, but that is the last money AA will get from me. When my points are gone, I will NOT use American Airlines again.

Bottom Line: this is a scam to get you to pay up or lose your points. How many points expire on Sunday instead of a weekday, and why wait till LATE FRIDAY afternoon to call and "make me aware" of the impending loss of my points.