Premium Class Award Booking
I don’t book domestic premium class awards often, especially with American Airlines. I primarily opt for economy, pick my Main Cabin Extra seat, and allow my elite status to do the rest. After all, a higher priority for complimentary upgrades is perhaps the biggest perk I can obtain from American status, or more specifically, my rolling 12-month Loyalty Point balance. They’ve cleared at a pretty reasonable rate the past few years, particularly to and from my midsized regional airport. So I’m probably not attuned to particular nuances which more frequent, consistently-premium class travelers are. But based on a recent experience, I’ve tweaked my premium class award booking strategy moving forward.
What Happened
I recently booked three friends domestic first class tickets. I found the per-person 21k AAdvantage mile one-way price for that segment reasonably priced for the ~3 hour flight. (It turns out I didn’t end up traveling on this trip.) On the day of travel, American cancelled this flight. Two friends obtained first class seats on a subsequent flight, but the third was involuntarily downgraded to economy. He had the rather interesting, unattractive combo of being in boarding group one with a seat assignment in the very last row of the plane.
At any rate, my downgraded buddy was still in good spirits, just thankful to get to the destination on a ticket he got for free. Perhaps this is why he didn’t care much about what happened to his first class seat, essentially shrugging when I asked him about it. Of course, he didn’t miss much given this was domestic premium (and AA, amirite), but I still wanted to follow up with AA on principle. I paid miles for a first class seat which one pal didn’t receive.
American Airlines Chat
A few days after my friend returned home, I hopped on an American Airlines chat session. After clumsily typing my way into and beyond the chat bot, I eventually reached a live agent. I briefly explained the situation and asked for a resolution. I held modest expectations, expecting a partial refund of miles for the involuntary downgrade. But I really had no basis for how much to expect (or request) back. More on that in a bit.
After some work on her end, the agent advised I’d receive 8.4k miles back in my AAdvantage account. I asked how American calculated this figure, and she unhelpfully responded:
How does one respond to such a dizzying statement? That didn’t matter much, as I felt I didn’t have any justification to ask for more – not that AA would’ve granted anything additional. I didn’t have enough information to know how to even feel about the 8.4k miles back in my account. I conceded, confirmed the miles were back in my account, thanked the rep, and the chat session ended.
Update: Since this article’s submission, VFTW posted about AA’s updated policy reflecting a 40% refund on a downgrade. While Gary’s example was on a cash ticket, I noticed that my 8.4k miles back is exactly 40% of the 21k award fare.
I’ll Do This From Now On
It was nice to get some sort of compensation back from AA for involuntarily downgrading my friend. After some advanced math, this means I paid 12.6k AAdvantage miles for his economy seat way at the back. But I didn’t know how to feel since I had no frame of reference to what that seat actually cost at the time I booked.
During the process of booking premium awards from now on, I’ll take a screenshot of the flight I’m booking and all subsequent flights for that day, including the award rates for economy and premium classes. If I or anyone else in my traveling party is involuntarily downgraded, I’ll have better information going into future communications with the airline.
Will it end up with me obtaining more compensation than not having this information? Most likely, no. But I’ll be able to have a more informed discussion with the rep to hopefully justify more compensation, if appropriate. At the very least, though, having this information will give me more peace of mind in how the compensation compares to the reality of what these flights cost in miles at the time of booking.
Premium Class Award Booking – Conclusion
Again, I’m no expert here, and I certainly don’t believe the miles will substantially pour in due to such efforts, if at all. But I’ll have a better foundation as an informed consumer. I’m a bit surprised I didn’t come to this realization earlier, but I’m glad I did now. I’ll implement the same change for premium international bookings, as well. Fortunately, the above situation hasn’t happened much. Actually, I don’t recall ever booking a premium award ticket and an involuntary downgrade coming into play.
How do you prefer to negotiate compensation for involuntary downgrades? What strategies have you used to best resolve the situation?
