UPDATE: American Airlines responded to this post and has put us back on track to receive a refund for the canceled portion of our daughter’s flight. Customer service lives to see another day! Thank you, American Air.
Call me an entitled American, if you like, but there seems to be a wide gulf these days between the words “customer” and “service” in our society.
I’m talking about when you call the “customer service” line of a major corporation and have to work through 15 AI bots that can’t help with any of your issues before a human finally comes on the line.
And when you finally connect to a human, there’s little help and even less empathy. Try talking to the “loyalty” department at the phone company known as the Death Star.
But I’m not here to rage on AT&T today. I’ll save that for another time.
Today, I’m ranting about a recent experience with the customer service department at American Airlines. Here’s the story:
My daughter, who lives in Florida, flew home for a few days the second week of January. She was to fly out of OKC Will Rogers International Airport at 4 p.m. Saturday on the return trip.
We were planning on taking her to the airport mid-afternoon until … she got a text about noon that her flight to DFW had been canceled. Canceled!
And Sarah had a connecting flight that evening to Fort Lauderdale with a 7 p.m. departure.
My wife and I were about to jump in the car and drive her to Terminal C at DFW when Sarah received yet another text from the airline. She had been rebooked for a Sunday flight — with no input from her.
Things got tense at our house as Sarah told us how important it was to her to get back to Florida on Saturday night. She still had what I assumed to be a valid boarding pass for the 7 p.m. flight.
So, I got on the phone, called the American Airlines customer service line and actually got a human on the line with not much delay. When I told him about our dilemma, he took the flight information from me and said, “oh, she’s been rebooked for tomorrow.”
Yes, I know, but we are driving her down to DFW this afternoon to make the 7 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale.
“She won’t be able board that flight because she’s now booked for tomorrow. And the 7 p.m. Fort Lauderdale flight is completely full. anyway.”
We went back and forth for a few minutes, but he was clear that her boarding pass was no longer valid.
So, I hung up and walked back into our living room where I found my daughter talking to another American Airlines customer service person who was far more accommodating. This person told her that she could still use her Fort Lauderdale boarding pass for the 7 p.m. flight, although she might not have the same seat assignment.
Two customer service folks from the same airline with two different outcomes. A rain-on-our-parade from one and a ray of hope from the other.
So, I can’t call out everyone in their customer service department. Sometimes there are unexpected pleasant surprises.
We all piled into the car and headed south, made it to DFW and dropped her off at Terminal C at 5:15. Sarah’s boarding pass DID get her on the plane and she made the 7 p.m. flight without issue.
But then… I got to thinking. Hey, American, how about a little something for the effort? Like a refund for the canceled OKC-DFW portion of the flight.
We were out gas money and time to make the drive to Dallas and back.
The next day, I got back on the American Airlines website, clicked on the “refund” button and filled in our flight numbers. The website told me that we had no canceled flights for which we deserved a refund.
What? I’m assuming the airline decided that we had a boarding pass for the Sunday flight that we didn’t use. So we were owed nothing.
I immediately found the page where you can file a complaint and wrote out this entire scenario in the space provided.
The next day I receive an email with this message:
“Please accept my sincere apologies for the experience you’ve described. We’re committed to prioritizing our customers in everything we do, and your feedback highlights this commitment. Your valuable insights will be made available to our leadership team to explore necessary improvements and deliver the world-class customer experience you expect from us.
“I appreciate your willingness to share your feedback with us. From everyone at American Airlines, thank you for choosing to fly with us. We look forward to the opportunity to welcome you on board again soon.”
Arrgh! The email addressed nothing that I wrote in the complaint form.
American, where’s my #@%$ check? Stay tuned.
Jim Stafford's BlogOKC 
I fly mostly in EU, I think the regulations here are different about those issues, but anyway. I believe that the airlines structure their customer care departments not to do the right thing for the customer, but to reflect the values of the company. This means that in the case of Ryanair, they try to make it impossible to get a refund. In other companies, like Turkish Airlines they try to get away with as least as possible and Aegean (regional) they pretend to be nice, but they give you refunds that most of the time are impossible to use. On the other hand we have the touch of the managing company of each airport, for example there are companies that provide land services, and they are not authorized to give refunds or upgrades on the spot. On the contrary, when the gate or the desk is managed by the airline crew, they show more empathy and can handle such cases better.
Good to hear you received some resolution, Jim. I have many similar stories. Most, however, can be summed up by, “Oh, well, that’s just California.”
Whoa! What a story. You were punished for doing the right thing for another passenger who fell ill. Maybe if you posted this story on FB and tagged American Airlines it might catch their attention and spur them to help you. Thanks for reading the blog post.
Wow, I found a place to vent and maybe get some guidance for my very unusual American Airlines experience. I was leaving Aruba with my family on January 2, 2025, we got to the airport in plenty of time only to be held up by broken conveyor belt. We inched along in line and got to a point we could taste the gate when a women in front of us in line passed out. My son is law, being a doctor tended to her until a wheel chair or stretcher got to her. We ran to the gate and could see our plane as well as the woman my son in law helped being wheeled on to the plane. We thought we could board as security assured us all along we could board. The person at the gate told us NO YOU CANNOT BOARD. We explained we were helping the girl being allowed on the plane right before our eyes. My daughter asked why can’t we board and she was told and I quote ” I don’t even have to look at you let alone answer your question.”
Several of my family members were scattered on other flights that night and the next day thru standby. Since I am 73 and in a different country my son booked me the last seat available on his flight the next day as I was told there was nothing available until two more days.
All I want is a credit for the cost of that ticket which was a first class seat, the only one left. Never thinking American Airlines would not honor my request under the circumstances. Instead AA first offered me a refund for a flight I didn’t take, when I told them of the flight error they reduced the credit in half and told me case closed, Period, no explanation, no reasoning, same old we are sorry for your experience and hope you will fly with us again.
Does anyone have any advise for me to proceed elsewhere to get my money back??
We are unified on the issue of “customer service,” Jim. Best of luck and go get ’em.