I don’t normally make posts like this, but people deserve to know how my wife and I were recently treated by American Airlines.
Our Reno to Dallas flight was canceled after we had already boarded the aircraft, causing us to miss our connection and throwing our entire vacation into chaos.
Here’s what that meant for us:
- A 12-hour delay in Reno.
- A 13-hour layover in Dallas.
- The loss of our paid-for seat locations on the aircraft in addition to the loss of the extra-legroom seats we paid for.
- We had to sit separately from each other in different rows on our rebooked flight.
- Additional transportation and meal expenses.
- Lost prepaid event reservations.
- 2 lost nights in a hotel, which I still had to pay for.
- More out-of-pocket costs just to catch up with our travel group.
Then came the part that was hardest to understand.
On our rebooked flight, American Airlines was offering passengers $1,200 to voluntarily take a flight just one hour later, on the same flight they rebooked us on. Meanwhile, my wife and I—whose vacation had already been turned upside down because of American Airlines’ operational failures—were offered a $100 travel voucher and automated emails telling us they would reimburse meals only if we could produce receipts.
I’m a 100% disabled veteran, and this ordeal made what should have been an enjoyable vacation far more physically demanding and significantly more expensive than it ever should have been. I wasn’t asking for special treatment. I was simply asking American Airlines to take responsibility and treat us fairly.
Instead, we’ve received form-letter/automated customer service responses and very little indication that anyone has truly, if at all, considered what we went through. It’s doubtful a human has even seen the issue.
American Airlines, this isn’t how you build customer loyalty. It’s how you lose it.
If you’ve had a similar experience, I’d be interested in hearing about it.
Please share this post so others can make an informed decision when choosing an airline.
Ken Gray is a former Nevada Assemblyman, U.S. Air Force veteran, and longtime public servant from Dayton, Nevada. The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views.
