August 2, 2019 started off swimmingly. Dave and I were going to New Zealand and Australia! It was a dream trip for both of us, plus it was our anniversary.
Our flight, on Air New Zealand was to begin from Chicago O’Hare. To position, I booked a 12:30 p.m. American Airlines flight for us from LGA to ORD using British Air Avios. That would get us to Chicago at 2 p.m. with more than 7 hours before our 9:20 p.m. flight. We pictured ourselves spending the time at a nice airport lounge in Chicago sipping champagne. I should add that the weather was beautiful that day.
We packed light. We took the subway and the Q70 bus to LaGuardia Airport.
When we went through security, a TSA agent thought Dave looked like one of the Ramones. He left his post to take a photo with Dave!
TSA Agent though Dave was a Ramone. Dave didn’t say he wasn’t.
Oh, what a great start to the day! We went to the American Express Centurion club at LGA and were psyched.
At the LGA Centurion Club
Let me add this note. I know now that there have been a lot of complaints in recent months about AA service, but I wasn’t flying AA so I never really paid attention to the complaints.
We went to the gate, and the representative was asking for volunteers. The deal was this: $350 voucher and guaranteed seats on the 1:30 p.m. flight. Hmmmm, what could go wrong? The 1:30 p.m. flight would get us to Chicago at 3 p.m. – with plenty of time. We raised our hands. We told the agent about our international connection, and we were told not to worry, we’d definitely be on the 1:30 p.m. flight.
That was a huge mistake.
The agent issued us our vouchers and new tickets and sent us off to the gate for the 1:30 p.m. flight. We got there and found that the flight was now delayed until 3:30 p.m. I ran back to the original gate. Why didn’t you check the status of the 1:30 flight before . . . ?
A supervisor helped us. She “protected” us with a standby ticket on the 2:30 flight. She mentioned that that flight was sold out, but we stood a good chance of getting on, if necessary.
And then the delays for both flights started inching up, minute by minute, hour by hour.
3 p.m.
4 p.m.
5 p.m.
We were calling Air New Zealand and American and various hotels trying to figure out all of our alternatives.
By this point, the 1:30 flight – our guaranteed flight – was now listed as 6:30 p.m. In other words, the only thing guaranteed about this flight was that we’d miss our flight to Auckland.
At 5 p.m. the 2:30 flight started boarding. We waited to see if we would make it on the flight. Then, one of the supervisors who’d been helping us, came over to us. She said we definitely wouldn’t make it on the plane, but she had booked us on a United Airlines flight at 6 p.m. She ushered us to the door where the shuttle would take us to the UA terminal.
While waiting at the door, I checked FlightAware.com and learned that the United flight was delayed until 8:30 p.m.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhit.
The supervisor took the ticket back, and, with no choices left, we started walking to the gate of our 1:30 p.m. flight (now delayed until 7 p.m.). I figured we had a lot of calls and decisions to make.
It was now about 5:15 p.m. As I was walking through the terminal, I heard a voice on a loudspeaker from somewhere. I heard Dave’s last name being called but I had no idea where it was coming from. At the top of my lungs, I yelled out (more than once), I AM HERE. WHO’S CALLING MY NAME? It turned out that there were two seats left on the 2:30 flight. In disbelief, I went hysterical crying at the gate. I think I hugged a few agents.
The plane left the gate at 5:21 p.m. I didn’t complain about sitting in the middle seat.
We arrived in Chicago, with not much time to spare. The ATS rail was not in service so we had to take a shuttle bus. It was going very slowly. By this point, I was in communication with Air New Zealand via Twitter messenger. We got to the terminal, and WE BECAME THOSE PEOPLE RUNNING FOR A PLANE. We got to the gate ten minutes before boarding began.
We made it!!!!
Cheers!
What an insane day. Would I raise my hand for a voluntary bump under similar circumstances again? Absolutely not.
Other than the first flight, everything went well and we had a great time in Australia and New Zealand (see, Overview: Our 21,996 Mile Trip to New Zealand and Australia).
I should add that I filed a complaint with AA over the flight delays (which are listed as mechanical), and was given 7,500 miles. It doesn’t seem like enough to me, but I probably won’t fight it.
Which brings me to one more question. As a World of Hyatt Globalist I have an offer to receive elite status with American Airlines. I was contemplating a weekend jaunt to Singapore on Finnair in order to obtain Executive Platinum status for the year. Your thoughts: Should I do it?
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
Yikes. It sounds like you were being really really foolish (and a bit greedy) trying to take the later flight. I’d never dream of doing something like this on a connecting flight before a big trip. If you failed you would only have yourself to blame. I’m glad it worked out for you.
Guilty!
I saw your posts from when you were in NZ so I knew you had made it but I was still going a little crazy just reading this. Good reminder to me to always do my own checking on flight status instead of just taking an agent’s word for it (and to only do it when there’s nothing important on my schedule!).
Answer is no, I’m in my last year as an ExecPlat, it’s not worth the spend, they do not care about their customers, they used to, they don’t anymore.
Had the same thing happen to me with AA in Vegas. 12 hour delay and got a 19 dollar food voucher. They sent me a survey and I responded all negative. Never heard back from them. Donated my miles to the military and will never fly AA again!
Agree with your comments on ExecPlat. I qualified this year in late March. Fly lots and lots of international. I am already well over 250,000 miles. But all AA cares about is their “Pampered Poodles” (can anyone name a dog more worthless than a poodle???). The rest of us, according to Douggie who had Presidents Club (the equivalent of Concierge Key) at US Scare and America’s Worst have no value if we aren’t CK. So like you, this is positively my last year at ExecPlat. Next year, I will fly anybody but AA on my international trips. I really cannot recall a recent flight that was on time. And the service, aye, don’t talk about the service. And to then be a true “second-class citizen” as an ExecPlat. No thanks. Don’t need it anymore. It’s that simple.
You guys are scaring me. I have a lot of AA miles, and was actually considering a $3K flight on Finnair to Singapore to make Ex Plat via the AA/Hyatt challenge. I thought, even for upgrades and ability to cancel flights, and perhaps get a match from another airline next year, it might be worth it. Now I’m having second thoughts.
Don’t be swayed by people spouting their first world problems. ExPlat just isn’t as good as Concierge Key? Mercy…the indignity of only getting comp’d first class upgrades *most* of the time!
If you can get ExPlat for $3K and fly frequently enough to enjoy it, it’s a no-brainer…especially so if you leverage it with status matches.
thank you!!
I think you should do it, simply because AA is adding a ton of new routes, some of them very interesting (Casalanca, anyone?)
thank you!
Then do it. You can find out for yourself how little Ex Plat now means. I’ve been EP for the last ten years. For what? Supposedly, a better chance at upgrades; access to the EP desk- which used to be a huge perk and the only reason I stayed EP- but that was when you could ask to work with a specific agent; Economy Extra at no cost; and 4 SWU’s which are nearly impossible to use. This year I’ve been offered exactly one International upgrade and it was at the gate. I’ve gotten only one domestic upgrade. Agents could and would actually help you. Now their hands are tied, there is very little they can do. But it does sound like they went above and beyond to try to help. Find out for yourself. Oh yes I forgot, you get EP luggage tags. Woohoo!
That sounds like something I would do and my wife would have killed me.
After all your proper planning (with a nice 7hr layover to enjoy Polaris ORD lounge), You risked your “Dream Trip” for pain-in-the-ass-to-redeem $350 voucher ~ on AA, dumpster-fire of an airline.
It’d be funny if it wasn’t so bewildering.
This story blows my mind. I’m surprised you complained to AA given your decision to volunteer and take on that added risk AND the fact you were connecting to non tethered reservation (even more added risk).
But in the end I’m happy you were able to have a nice trip.
I don’t disagree with most of your comment, but it did irk me that the first agent didn’t check on the status of the 1:30 flight when promising everything was in order. Hypothetically speaking, if I ever did this again, I would check the status of the alternative flight myself. But I won’t do this again!
As you probably are aware, those updates happen at odd times and often later than the “update” times, so it was likely it was not delayed when she rebooked you. I do not fault you for volunteering – you had ample time. However, from all the actions AA took, my takeaway from your post is they continually worked for you when they really were under no obligation. It seems while somethings went wrong, the customer service and actions of gate agents were above and beyond other airlines I have experiences who would have simply not done anything to help.
Generally, with 14 AA flights a day between LGA and ORD and marketed as a shuttle, it should not have been a high risk proposition. From my experiences with these airports, there are 2 reasons not to do it: thunderstorms expected in vicinity at either airport or on a Thursday. Glad you made it.
Imagine being dumb enough to take a bump on separate tickets and then complaining about the airlines delays
Guilty!
Last year I had a positioning flight from LAS to LAX to link up with a Cathay Pacific first class award LAX-HKG. They were offering like $500 to take a flight an hour later which is a great deal, but I didn’t take it. My plane was there, at the gate, and I wasn’t going to risk switching to another flight.
I’m generally willing to take a worthwhile bump when returning from vacation, but almost never on the outbound. If I return home a day late, NBD, but too many things can domino in a bad way for the vacation if you’re delayed a day or more.
As to the Finnair MR, if you’re looking at flying AA a fair bit, it sounds like you could get some decent value. Personally, I’m still on the fence about matching and am really annoyed that top tier AA members get top tier Hyatt status automatically while we top tier Hyatt members automatically get absolutely nothing with AA for being top tier. Automatic platinum doesn’t seem too much to ask, since there are 3 (THREE!) higher elite tiers.
I’ve been Platinum with AA for years but I think this year I’m not going to worry about making it there again. They have become horrible at their core function of getting customers to their destination on time.
Their planes have gotten more and more uncomfortable with smaller seats and removal of seat back entertainment. Their customer service is awful and they have no consideration for their customers. A perfect example is recently with hurricane Dorian. Delta is allowing customers to cancel and get a voucher good for up to one year. American, well you can move your trip up to one week and they’re waving the change fee. Gee, thanks. You KNOW flights will be cancelled but instead of being smart and reducing the number of passengers you’re going to have to accommodate on new flights and just doing the right thing so people aren’t stranded away from home, well let’s just be dumb.
Ever hear of NEVER volunteer for anything!
I have now!
I’ll never voluntarily delay my travel on American. This week my return flights were the first in 3 months that were on time – except for one leg a couple of weeks ago that I missed because my connecting flight was late. Because the connector was a mechanical delay they comped the hotel and got me on the first flight out of ORD in the morning.
Which was delayed
I used to fly same day for meetings, would book with 1 hour layovers for connections and never worried. Now if I’m forced to fly AA I go out the day (not the night) before and come home the day after my meetings. One day trips have become 3 days because there’s no reliability to the AA schedule. And they lie so I no longer listen to them (my outbound flight to ORD this week was delayed “due to weather” preventing us from leaving – crew & plane were at the gate waiting to leave too…United had 2 flights that left on schedule during our delay period…our AA flight was the only one on the board that was delayed…weather that only affects AA…yeah, right).
As a person who is contemplating two asian business class flights to keep EP status, I say go for it!
However, to make sure you get the credit you deserve for EQM and EQD, make sure you purchase your Finnair flight on AA paper amd make sure that it is an AA flight number (AA 6### or AA 8###). If not, you only receive a fraction of the credit.
You can see terms at AA.com, advantage, earn miles, partner airlines.
I think it’s great that you posted about this because as frequent travelers we ALL do silly things or make simple mistakes. ALL of us. I would never take a volunteer bump on the way TO a destination. Especially on a big trip like this but I would think about it on the way back home.
Glad it worked out and thanks for sharing about it.
I guess it wasn’t that stupid from time perspective..having 7 hrs layover in Chicago I would consider $350 voucher as well. On the other hand I have very bad experience with ALL American airlines. I don’t remember when my original flight wasn’t canceled or badly delayed. I avoid flying within USA in general. I understand sometimes its not possible or practical but try to organise the trip without any internal flights.
My rule of thumb when it comes to vouchers is never to volunteer outbound but always volunteer coming home unless you will miss something critical like a child’s event, birthday, or a critical appointment. I don’t mind being stuck somewhere coming home when the airline is footing the bill but missing a vacation or business meeting for a voucher, especially on an airline known for piss poor customer service, would never do it.
Lesson learned I hope 🙂
Lesson absolutely learned.
I have been forced to use AA to get from northern MI to Costa RIca and Nicaragua for the past 10 years. They have never failed to make it a miserable experience. From nasty dirty, old planes to surly flight attendants to delays upon delaysupond delays then cancellations. And now hearing that in the age of fatter Americans they are shrinking everything. I am done with them. Delta treats me like a star everytime I get near them and United is more than tolerable. AA needs to go out of business of fire Doug because they aren’t doing the job they need to stay in business. I have over 200,000 miles and I refuse to get suckered into using them with American so they can strand me again. Alliance partners will get my support.
Murphy’s Law has happened so often with “trip of a life time” positioning flights that I now fly in the day before and stay at an airport hotel. The lack of stress is worth the extra time and expense and adds to the enjoyment of that luxury flight overseas. If your overseas dream flight is within 24 hours of the start of your trip on the positioning flight, it is still considered uninterrupted travel. You can therefore still check your bags straight through. But if you do need them at that overnight stop, you can “short check” them to your overseas gateway and recheck them the following day. Much more civilized!
From someone whose traveled to 65 countries over 42 years I’d never advise even a one or two flight trip to position yourself to prepare to fly a long haul internationally.
That being said last October my husband and I each contributed over 450,000 miles to purchase two first class seats RT from O’HARE TO TOKYO AND RETURN SHANGHAI THRU LAX TO JFK on American Airline.
When we arrived before noon in O’Hare we were
To board around noon for a 14 + hour flight to Tokyo. Since both of us are private pilots i watched our plane, the DREAMLINER, being worked on at the rt engine for over 6 hrs with no positive confirmation from any gate agents.
As night drew near we were suddenly told to travel about 10 or more gates toward check-in to ATTEMPT TO receive overnight rooms.
Three agents were completely overwhelmed by hundreds of ticketholders who at this time were tired, not fed and ill-informed. We gave up and retreated to the AA CHECK-in gate where we were offered a room reached by a 25 mile taxi.
By this point in time I was angry as an AA FREQUENT FLYER MEMBER for over 25 Years, when told the only near hotel a MARRIOT WAS
COMPLETELY BOOKED. And I am a Marriot Hotel Card member. So we walked across the block leaving our luggage in the belly of the plane.
I approached the Marriot Mgr who promptly offered us a nice room which I gladly paid $200. + dollars . No clothes available to us we went directly to bed.
The next day we showed up back at the same AMERICAN gate and were told there would be another indeterminate wait as now in addition to engine trouble there was a plane door in coach that could not be closed!
We had lost our 2 FIRST CLASS SEATS and were made to sit up for 14+ hrs in Coach with no perks for losing our very expensive seats AMERICAN AT LEAST COULD HAVE OFFERED US
better food than 2 plates of non-descript noodles and free drinks but that never happened.
To this date I have NOT RECEIVED ANY COMPENSATION FROM AMERICAN EITHER IN MILES OR FOR THE MARRIOT HOTEL ten months
Later.
Will I ever fly a long haul on American, to date have bot made a decision.
So let me get this straight. You’re heading off on your dream trip with confirmed seats all the way and you were not bumped at LGA but instead VOLUNTEERED to bump yourself and assume ALL the risk of missing your connection (no matter the apparent initial risk you perceived)… And you’re blaming AA…? We have a word for this where I come from. Begins with M and ends with N and it has two O’s in it. And an R.
Thanks for the word games. Did you not read through the post and my admission that I’d made a colossal mistake? But in truth, a lot of my mistake was not knowing how messed up AA is.
AA sucks. this is my first and will be my last experience.they cancelled a flight on us. didnt notify us, i found out by doing a random price check to see if it had gone up or down. the flight is in 5 months. i called the reservation dept-they were useless so i gotput through to a supervisor. he was confrontational and unprofessional. my options were to leave a day sooner or get a refund. rebooking with another carrier would cost 30% more. i have had to deal with cancelled/changed flights before with delta, united, air canada and westjet. ALL 4 have accomodated me, even if it involved using another carrier, or compensated me with a hotel room for forcing me to layover an extra day such as the case here. i emailed the “customer service” team and they will not budge. does anybody know who i should contact that will hear my story? or is it my responsibility to incur the extra costs that aa have reneged on??