In March I wrote about a friend who had 60k miles yanked from his account for supposed “seat blocking.” The quick synopsis: Hetravels 2-3 times per month on American, is Platinum, and had a big vacation to Europe scheduled for March. He got on the upgrade list for both outbound and inbound, and 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.”
He got no response to weeks of calls and emails trying to explain his position and find a solution. Eventually, after weighing his options, he elected to make a formal complaint to the Department of Transportation. For my friend, it’s not just about the miles they took. It’s about his integrity—American is basically calling him a thief and a liar.
His complaint (which can be found in full here) states that the AA.com system is flawed, as someone can inadvertently make a reservation without ever clicking “Hold” or “Reserve”. Therefore my friend’s actions were not intentional, and the 60k punishment too severe. He is requesting that the DOT investigate these unfair practices, and that American must turn over all notes surrounding their investigation of him and train their corporate security staff about their website design flaws.
A month later American has responded. Well, they have responded for the second time. A couple of weeks ago they contacted my friend and offered to give back the 60k miles if he would drop the complaint, and that he couldn’t disclose the deal to anyone. He thought about it, but the miles weren’t the point. He wants them to acknowledge that he wasn’t intentionally trying to game their system, and eventually he hopes they’ll fix the flaw. Needless to say, American was very surprised that he turned down their initial offer. Their response of record uses a lot of pages to say that since there are other ways to find available seats, he was a “computer expert” intentionally blocking seats by searching the way he was. No matter that he never clicked “Reserve” or “Hold” (or that he works in marketing, not IT). They spent maybe a paragraph defending their system. They also said that his complaint is too general and that the DOT is not the right venue. If you’re interested in reading the whole thing, it’s available online here.
So now, we wait for the DOT to make a ruling. I am very curious to see what they say…..
Click here to read the original post, the second update, or the third update.
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Good for your friend. These secrecy deals hurt the rest of us!
I just read through your friend’s DOT complaint.
1. AA is being stupid because it shouldn’t be creating a reservation
2. Your friend just wasted massive amounts of his own time – you can view the seatmap on the screen where the pricing/flight options are shown. Just click the “+” and you can View Seats.
AA needs to make this right but your friend Joel should save himself some major headache by not using this complex process to view available seats.
Glad to see your friend declining the return of his miles. I have only recently learned to always stand up for my rights, even if I risk incurring a loss. In then end, you come out ahead by standing up for what’s right.
As much as I want to nail American for their behavior I think that the DOT will throw this out. I say good for your friend. At a minimum he has cost American Airlines a lot more than 60,000 miles in legal fees. Good way to stick it to them. I wish everyone did this.
So here’s an interesting scenario–I booked a flight using AAdvantage miles and needed to switch to a different flight. Such a change can’t be made online, so I called AAdvantage. The flight I wanted to move to had award availability online, but the agent’s computer wasn’t showing availability. So she asked me to put a hold on the flight, and then she was able to use my record locator from the hold to move my flight. How is this not in the same realm as what your friend did?!
Makes no sense.
I am curious how this works with an online travel agency. AA will list their inventory to a Global Inventory System and the online agency will check inventory to see if a seat is available.
One can remain anoymous in this process and potentially view the inventory. I wonder if this “blocks” a seat or not in the AA inventory system via a 3rd party.
Have not really played around with this but in general all on line systems should try to prevent a denial of service. I could make a lot of bogus AA accounts and just start going into their “flawed system” and seat block thus preventing sales.
The link in your post did not work. I had to use: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=DOT-OST-2014-0077-0003
to view the document.
@Adam Thank you I updated the link.
Good for him for continuing the fight on behalf of the rest of us. ShAAme on AA for fighting it. They are wrong and they know they are wrong, now they are just embarassing themselves.
I will happily give your friend 60k miles for standing upto AA for these poor closed-door practices.
the “computer expert” angle is ridiculous – the bus stops here.
If we want to make our voice heard maybe we should leave a comment in the case.
Please thank your friend for standing up for all of us who are forced to fly AA! I filled out a pop-up survey on the DoT website when I first viewed his complaint. I told them I will be watching closely how they handle what is clearly abusive behavior by AA.
I just wanted to let you know when I first read this story that I liked AA on Facebook, copied the link to your your article and posted that I thought he deserved an answer… I received a response to my post asking for a bit of clarification of what I was asking for the response on, but nothing after that. I don’t fly AA and have only ever earned enough miles in all my flying time for an upgrade, but it was the lack of of a proper/appropriate response at the beginning that got me… Not a very good business practice. The subsequent responses have not been much better.
DOT’s complaint process includes a mechanism for interested members of the public to offer their views. If you’re like to do so, just go to http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=DOT-OST-2014-0077 and click “Comment Now”. It’s easy — just fill in the form and press submit.
I understand that DOT staff carefully review public comments in order to evaluate the number of passengers similarly situated and the relative importance of the various matters before them. If you think this matter is important — whether for Mr. Hayes’s experience personally, or for AA needing to revisit its approach to alleged “security” violations by passengers, or for some other reason — this is an easy and appropriate way to submit your view.
Good for your friend for not accepting AAs offer. They should have given him the miles back months ago. Asking for that option after they’ve forced him to escalate?
Too late.