A woman flew American Airlines from New York to Miami. Her flight faced rolling delays before being cancelled. The next flight they put her on was also delayed and cancelled. Then they had no seats to offer her until the next day – at seven o’clock in the evening, which would mean missing a day of work.
She was stuck coming out of pocket for a hotel night. And she booked herself a new flight on another airline to get back earlier. And she sent in a complaint with receipts to American, not expecting anything, just to vent.
- American offered her a trip credit! (“Oh my god, that’s great. I was expecting nothing; I got a little something.”)
- But it was only for $25.
@giannaalexis8 What is happening in the world #americanairlines #airport #airlinecredit #flight #flightcancelled ♬ original sound – Gianna Alexis
Though the Department of Transportation has a dashboard to show you what airlines have committed to provide to customers when things go wrong during travel, they’re generally only on the hook when the delay or cancellation is their fault.
If it’s due to weather, or air traffic control staffing, airlines owe you very little. The Biden administration is campaigning on making the airlines do more but that’s not the rule today.
Airlines do have to refund your ticket when they cancel a flight! And sometimes that can cover the cost of a new flight, even at the last minute!
They’re no longer as generous moving customers onto another airline. In this case it seems another carrier had space. The passenger might still have pushed for this, going from agent to agent until finding one sympathetic enough to do it – phone, twitter, check-in desk, gate, customer service counter, airline lounge if access is available – there are many bites at the apples.
And how you book a ticket matters. Use a credit card that includes trip delay coverage, and since the airline won’t provide a room for the night this woman would likely have been able to submit the cost of the room and meals, and travel between the airport and hotel to their card company’s insurer for reimbursement.
Sadly, both Citibank and Barclays – the two issuers of American Airlines co-brand credit cards in the United States – stopped including trip delay coverage with their cards. That makes actually buying American Airlines tickets using an American Airlines credit card a more questionable choice. Chase’s premium rewards cards generally offer this benefit. So does Bilt Rewards from Wells Fargo. And some Amex products have it as well.
Fortunately this woman – who doesn’t appear to have either pushed for accommodation on another airline or submitted a trip delay claim – was in a position to come out of pocket to get to her destination. Many people are not. On Thursday I flew with several passengers who had been stuck with United Airlines trying to reach their destination for three days. I far prefer to take matters into my own hands… which is also why I value trip delay coverage since it helps take some of the financial pressure off of doing so.
Gianna is quite easy on the eyes
An even better solution would be “wraparound” travel insurance. That separates the insurance from the choice of credit card to buyt the tickert — a big advantage.
Time to spare, travel by air.
So she decided not to buy trip insurance or use a crdit card that offered that benefit, and now complains due to delays from summer storms in NY and FL. While delays suck, especially rolling delays, make sure you are protected.
Until recently I never even considered any type of travel insurance. And “knock on wood”, I have actually never had a situation where a canceled or delayed schedule created any problem. But lately, with all of the airline problems, it seems absolutely necessary.
I wonder how credit card trip coverage would apply in a bundled vacation where the air was included in the vacation price? It’s not a separate line item on a credit card. It’s one total charge that includes everything. I’m guessing that in that case, you would need a 3rd party insurance product.
Today, the absolutely worse day is the very first day of a vacation. It’s almost like flipping a coin. Heads you go. Tails you don’t. Except with airlines, you may lose no matter what comes up on the coin.
The AmericaWest management team is like herpes: the gift that keeps on giving.
Despite all the complaining about delays and cancellations, people keep buying tickets. Flights from everywhere to everywhere are close to 100% full. Ticket prices keep rising but people keep buying.
Changes will be slow for airlines and ATC because there is no business case to make changes. Business is booming for airlines with no end in sight.
Gary Left shame on you for republishing such dreck. Air traffic control and weather to blame, no service recovery EVEN IF DOT put that legislation in to COMPENSATE! You of ALL PEOPLE KNOW THIS.
Those who don’t buy travel insurance, that’s on them.
This woman stayed in a $300 a night Marriott? Seriously? No sympathy.
You’re getting worse thee days Mrm Clickbait.
In spite of how people might feel about SWA, when they had their Christmas meltdown last year, they made me whole for tickets i bought on AA to get home.
@Patrick I have to say that was an extremely rare 21st century business decision that was admirable.
@Patrick. Most of SW issues were thier fault. The AA flights were delayed and canceled due to weather and air traffic control.
It may not have helped in this particular case, but the sooner the US gets its own equivalent of EU/EC 261 the better.
“She was stuck coming out of pocket for a hotel night.”
She was stuck in a pocket? Neat trick!
$600 sounds like a bargain. Years ago, I had my parents booked on a Frontier flight out of Savannah, GA that only operated once a week. When their flight was cancelled, they offered to re-book them a week later – but I had already made all of my plans to be off work and host them during this week. I had even purchased non refundable room reservations for accommodations and activities near their destination for that week – so I was unwilling to wait a week. It cost about $1200 to get both of them out of Savannah the same day on Delta but Frontier issued voucher credits for that amount. Since they were too old to travel much more and I was the one who had purchased the tickets, I did talk them into giving the credits to me. With Frontier’s low prices at the time, it took me several years to use up the credits but I did eventually use them. I would have expected a same day ticket to cost a lot more today than in the past. $600 sounds like a “super deal” to me. Too bad, American has not done anything to make you want to fly with them again. You should make it clear that you do have alternatives when it comes to air travel. And, yes, I do still fly Frontier but never on flights with no same day alternatives. I’m just not willing to invest my time and money riding a shuttle to the airport for a flight unless there are alternative same day flights that I could fly on in the event mine is cancelled. And, I would never take a same day flight to get to cruise or any time sensitive event. Even the president of United had to pay thousands of dollars for a personal flight, presumably because he had to get to work somewhere!
Patrick, same here. Wife stuck at DAL during the SWA meltdown. Found her a seat home on Alaska. SWA covered the cost of the flight, hotel, and rental car and did so in just a few days.
Most of the delays and chelation were the direct results of airlines lacking crews and airport staff. Storms last a few hours. Airlines took days to recover
@Recent Flyer… I thought we were discussing UA issues. Not AA. regardless,,, to take multiple days to get people out on flights and not compensate… Ouch.
@Pete D… I agree. Rare indeed but sure went a long way in placating their frequent and infrequent flyers.
I was one flight of way from getting SWA status and the flight I missed was my last qualifying flt. They gave me credit for it proactively.
That still buys a nice dinner @ Burger King maybe even dinner for 2
This is GRAND coming from a blogger that touts the airline deregulation lobby (and is deluded, or paid, to write that airlines have too many regulations!).
Thank the Republicans in Congress for this. I wish you could send them the bill, but they’re just going to laugh and keep on grifting.
I travel full time and I spend a good $1200/year (about $100/month) on additional travel insurance beyond my credit card coverage and it has been entirely worth it. Never had an issue getting reimbursed for cancelled flights, unplanned hotel stays or medical issues abroad.
@Al LeFeusch: “I travel full time and I spend a good $1200/year (about $100/month) on additional travel insurance beyond my credit card coverage…”
Thanks for posting the premium cost. $1200 implies just one delay is likely to make it pay for itself.
@Al leFeusch. If you’d ever had reason to use it, you might feel differently about your insurance costs. I only buy it now if the cancellation costs of not getting somewhere is really large and the costs can not be mitigated any other way. The two times I filed claims, they were both denied. You have to have the right kind of insurance for the right kind of delay/cancellation/death or sickness that happens. How can you ever know what to cover? It’s such a crapshoot. I paid about $500 for “cancel for any reason insurance” for a cruise last year but I have no idea if it would have really covered me for any reason because I didn’t need it that time. Always the best kind of insurance… the kind you don’t need or use.