Couldn’t avoid AA’s booking fee

This item appears on page 28 of the March 2009 issue.

Around Oct. 31, 2008, I went online and tried to get an award ticket on LAN Airlines from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to São Paulo, Brazil, using American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

AA’s policy is that if you get an award ticket or purchase a ticket on the telephone, they charge a fee of $30, and if you get it at an AA office it’s $20. There is no extra charge if the ticket is purchased online.

I was unable to secure the ticket online, so I called the local AA office at Santa Fe 881 in Buenos Aires only to be told that it wasn’t possible to do that and I would have to go to the AA office, which I did on Nov. 3, charging the ticket on a credit card.

I sent an e-mail to AA about this but never received a reply. The only way that AA would answer an e-mail was if I sent it on their website, but that way I could not keep a copy or send a copy to anyone.

An AAdvantage Platinum member, I then called the AA Platinum desk (800/843-3000), making the long-distance call using a phone card, only to be told, basically, ‘That’s the way it is.’

How can AA charge a fee when there is no alternative?

JERRY MENDEL

Buenos Aires, Argentina

ITN sent a copy of the above letter to American Airlines (Box 619612, MD 2400, DFW Airport, TX 75261-9612) and received the following reply.

Thank you for contacting American Airlines Customer Relations.

We understand Mr. Mendel’s objection to the fees that now apply to AAdvantage® award tickets issued through American Airlines’ US reservations offices and airport locations. This type of fee is fast becoming an industry standard and represents a way for us to continue to offer full services as well as to keep our pricing competitive.

We understand that the charge is most objectionable when it is applied to AAdvantage® award tickets that cannot be booked online.

Before we announced the implementation of the service fees, we carefully evaluated excluding tickets, such as those issued from Promotions or AAdvantage® Airline Awards, that are not available on AA.com. Since the number of transactions that fits this criteria represents such a small percentage of our business, we felt that it would be less confusing, overall, to our members and employees if we went ahead and charged the fee for all award tickets initially issued through American’s US reservations offices and airport locations.

Since members typically book these types of awards in small quantities, we felt that the imposition of a modest fee would have little impact on the overall value of participating in promotions or using AAdvantage® miles to travel.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our rationale behind this fee.

J. EDWARDS, Customer Relations, American Airlines