Last month I posted about a friend of mine who had 60k Aadvantage miles yanked from his account due to “seat blocking”. A 
quick synopsis: He travels 2-3 times per month on American, is Platinum, and had a big vacation to Europe scheduled for March. He immediately got on the upgrade list for both outbound and inbound. Inbound cleared immediately. He started checking to see if there were any available biz class seats for the outbound flight. The day before departure, access to his AA accounts were suddenly blocked. After frantic phone calls, he got an email from AA saying that they were taking 60k miles and kicking him off of the outbound upgrade list due to his “seat blocking.”
We’ve figured out what my friend’s mistake was: in order to see what seats were available, he inadvertently created reservations. American was unable to sell these seats for a period of time, therefore they called it “seat blocking.” It was completely accidental on my friend’s part—he had no idea he was creating reservations, as he never clicked “book” or even selected seats. I also didn’t realize he was doing anything wrong, as I have done a similar thing leading up to my trips to Manila.
Upon arriving home from vacation, my friend repeatedly called and emailed American to find out more information. He felt it was a huge misunderstanding, and if he could explain it to someone he would have a chance of getting his miles back, or at least clearing his name. He hit brick walls at every turn. Eventually, he was told that the only person that could help him was the original business analyst that emailed him. He sent her another email explaining what happened (in addition to the one he sent when this happened, which is in the original post). He never heard back from her.
Dear [Business Analyst],
I’m just trying to reach out to you on last time on your above email from March 20th.
For me, the above isn’t simply about the 60,000 miles, it’s a matter of integrity and pride. I simply view you as someone doing their job and acting in the manner you see appropriate, without judgment on yourself or your character – but what’s been said and done to me is a judgment on myself and my character.
I can only reiterate that what happened caught me completely by shock – and it’s why I’m still trying to follow up on this, because it was all unintentional and unknowing on my end. I’ve posted to several of the larger airline blogs trying to understand what you believed I was attempting to do and how it was even possible.
You should know that the responses on these were that a great deal of people do the same thing that I was, just checking to see what the chances for an upgrade are – without a clue that it somehow affects AA’s system or violates any TOS, and many of these are long-term Platinum/Executive flyers. Again – if I had even had a clue that was the case, I never would have. I suppose this helps everyone on those blogs to be the wiser, now, but I still feel like I’ve been hit out of left field by all of this.
I never once put a Hold on any of those seats – if I had done something like that, then I would definitely have thought that I was doing something wrong. I’m also not sure on why, from your point of view, I would have been trying to block seats all the way back in October (per your attachment) when I first purchased the ticket (and was, again, just trying to see the chances of upgrades at the time), or how I would think names like ASDF would somehow be fooling anyone if I truly were attempting to do so.
I won’t take up more of your time- but I just need to reiterate that you’ve come after an unknowing person with all of this- and if I had simply gotten an email or a call letting me know what was occurring and how it was perceived on AA’s side, it would have solved everything and I’d have at least known upfront and could have shared that information with others. The fact that I had to research to find out how what I was doing might even be affecting AA’s system says something to me.
I would truly appreciate a response, and value your reading this.
Sincerely,
[Friend]
He sent her another email, asking if she received his other emails. Nothing. Finally, he emailed her this week.
[Business Analyst]-
Would you be willing to donate the 60,000 miles that you took to the AA Make-A-Wish Program?
That way, you’ve done what you need to in still having taken the miles from me, but at least I can know that something good came out of all this.
Could you please at least do this?
Sincerely,
[Friend]
Last night he got this response.
Hello [friend],
Thank you for your response. If you would like to donate miles to the Make-A-Wish program from your remaining miles, you are welcome to do so, but it will not be possible to utilize the miles penalized.
Regards,
[Business Analyst]
Corporate Security
So there you go. He inadvertently broke the rules, and instead of a warning he was penalized a large amount of miles. When he requested clarification, he was ignored.
I want to reiterate: my friend flies with American every month, often multiple times per month. He has been extremely loyal for years. It seems like the new American is not interested in retaining their frequent travelers. Combine this with the way the recent award changes happened, and it’s feeling more and more like an airline I don’t want to fly.
Note: Here is the link to check seat availability without worry about creating accidental reservations.
Readers, any thoughts?
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I always create dummy bookings to check seats as far as I’m concerned until you’ve entered your CC details your just browsing. If this isn’t the case AA needs to fix their IT rather than taking away miles from customers.
@Nick totally with you. It seems like if people looking at flights creates this many problems for AA, maybe it’s time for a new system….
How exactly do you “inadvertently” create reservations? It’s either a hold (which you can’t do less than 7 days out anymore), or a purchase. When I want to check upgrade available/potential, my wife simply logs into her account and sees the F or J availability. No holds, no reservations.
Confused about the part where your friend inadvertently created reservations. How does that happen exactly?
The (lack of) response does leave a lot to be desired either way, though from what I’ve heard fraud departments are famous for being reticent like this and that’s been going on for some time (i.e. pleading your case gets a form response or gets ignored completely). So I wouldn’t say this is a symptom of the ‘new American’ necessarily.
@Greg that is exactly what my friend was doing. In the comments of the original post, Adam explained it best:
“When you select flights, before booking them, even just for fun, the system creates a reservation and puts a hold on the seat. Your friend is almost certainly not aware of this, and each time he would check, select the flights and get to the seat map, he would be creating new reservations. “
Reprehensible business behavior on the part of AA. Plain and simple.
Why does AA even hire a ‘person’ do to this job? Just automate the process and save the company a salary. If AA doesn’t care about resolving misunderstandings or fielding unusual circumstances then fire the whole lot of business analysts and let the computers do the work. Idiots.
While I agree that AA is 100% in the wrong on this, and quite frankly should be sued, there are other easier ways to check seat availability, such as on aa.com via Plan Travel/View Available Seats or through ExpertFlyer.com.
I have a policy to NEVER Fly AA unless I have no other choice. They have such poor customer service I couldn’t take it any more. I would upgrade with miles, then they downgraded my seat, and they kept my FF miles.I was a platinum flyer, and I wrote several letters complaining. They wouldn’t even send me a form letter, & totally ignored my complaint. I think their policy is to ignore letters complaining until it gets close to litigation.
Amazed after publicity AA would be dumb enough to not respond. Of all the consumer complaints we hear against airlines, this is the most honest mistake I can recall ever seeing. This isn’t about refunding a nonrefundable ticket, taking advantage of a loophole, or any mischievous behavior. No customer should have an expectation that this was wrong. AA should be embarrassed by its response as it is not the “world class service” they claim to offer.
@Greg – the “reservation” is a temporary hold that is created to hold the inventory for the duration of the purchase session. It would time out if not purchased. It is done to “hold the price” for the session to avoid getting to the confirmation page and seeing that seat was taken, generating an error.
I find this whole story surprising. I once made an error booking a ticket and got a terrible customer service response back. I found the email for the VP of Customer Relations online, sent and email and within 1 day got a personal call from her apologizing for how customer service responded and refunding me the entire ticket with no penalty. I had no status at the time. Now as a platinum, I find that the airline bends over backwards to help me. So this whole story from the “mistake” to the “Response” doesn’t add up.
Fraud departments do not respond to emails because they are aware of legal consequences. AA can change the rules whenever they want, but they must follow the rules of their program as they currently exist. In a case like this where you have taken miles from someone, you don’t want a non-lawyer making statements that could potentially be used against you in a later action.
Once you hit a wall in a case like this, a letter to the legal department/general counsel of American would likely work better. Litigating over this would be foolish since it would cost far more than the value of the miles but there are lots of crazy/non-rational actors who like spending lots of money on lawyers. If the legal team thinks you are crazy enough to go to arbitration/litigation over these miles, they might offer you some or all of your miles back since they also don’t want to spend 10K-30K to resolve this matter.
Lets stop the bullshiting and mad mouthing AA. Theres no way to accidently place it on HOLD hust by looking. Theres always 3 sides of this story. In this case ur friend is a liar since AA doesnt have a story. They just saw what ur friend was doing.
It strikes me that AA’s practice of penalizing customers for this very reasonable and natural practice is both unfair and deceptive. It would be a natural subject for a formal on-the-record public complaint to the Department of Transportation. That would compel AA (through counsel) to respond, again on-the-record — and that would be most likely to get a suitable resolution of this matter.
I’d be happy to tell you what I know about the procedure for filing such a complaint. My name (associated with this comment) will let you easily find me (Google or Bing) and my contact details.
Tell your friend to file a DOT complaint and a complaint with the Texas AGs office.
I don’t buy your friend’s story at all. AA knows exactly what happened here.
Seems to me that most believe what has happened but a small segment does not. Either way I would like to know the truth. This might take a little work. Is it possible to create a new AA account, transfer a small amount of miles into it and try to replicate what happened? Curious. I thought the charity request would have been met with a positive response.
I hope AA sues these people for discrediting their company with lies.
Absolutely reprehensible that the person is being penalized for a fault in AA’s system.
The “friend” at this point has one recourse: File a complaint with the US DoT, perhaps a copy to their congressman & senator. It might be worthwhile to complain to the state Attorney General for consumer fraud. Assuming that the person did not actually hold the reservation and that the duplicate PNR is solely the result of inadequacies in AA’s systems (about which the person has no knowledge), then despite any disclaimer that AA has in the program rules it is commiting a fraud. 60,000 miles is not worth a lawsuit by itself, but collective investigation by a state’s attorney might well put AA on notice of it’s reprehensible behavior.
If it’s all as your friend says. This sounds like it needs an all out social media blitz. Tweet and Facebook AA until you get an actual, genuine response.
Sad to see AA’s customer service has gotten so bad under Doug Parker. 🙁
@Mike, you’re absolutely wrong. A new PNR has been created by the time you get to the seat map. You can verify this by logging into your account, making a dummy reservation simply by getting to the seat map, then calling in to finish booking. All they’ll need is your AAdvantage number, and they’ll see the PNR you just put on hold.
Your hostility is completely unwarranted. I suggest you find other ways to release your hate.
Common people… this guy is a platinum, flies all the time and you’re telling me he doesn’t know what he’s doing?
I hope AA take away all his points, close his accounts and cancel his award tickets too.
Airlines today makes very little money on even revenue tickets, they already loose money on us. Think and play nicely… This is is screw us all…
@Charles can you please provide the email for vp coustomer relations
All AA should have done is warned and then taken action if they were a repeat offender. This way when an accident like this happens there is no ridiculous punishment. Such a stupid policy. They need to fix their site or policy.
@Adam, how do you blame this on US and Doug Parker? Airlines are still operating separately, reservation systems are still very separate, and customer call centers can’t even assist with tickets on the other system yet. I doubt integrating fraud departments was a high priority.
I side with AA. “I suppose this helps everyone on those blogs to be the wiser…”
Your friend knew what he was attempting to do and he got caught. Nice job AA.
I’m not surprised. American Airlines has quite possibly the worst customer service ever. It does not care about its customers and will subject them to loudly-chattering flight attendants during red eye flights without compensation or any indication that the company is taking action. Not surprising that it would also seize 60K in miles without warning.
Bottom line is that I don’t care if American Airlines has direct flights from my home airport to my favorite destination. I’ll fly another airline and deal with changing planes instead.