Fee for Talking With American Airlines Employee
 

I resent being charged $20 to talk with an American Airlines representative who helped me use a banked plane ticket left from a trip I couldn't take. When I called American to bankt he ticket I was told it would be held for a year and that there would be a $150 charge to change it. I was told to call back when I wanted to re-book my ticket.

When I couldn't figure out how to apply the banked plane ticket online to a new one I wanted to purchase, I called American to complete the transaction. At no time was I told I would be charged an additional $20 for someone helping me with my transaction.

When I saw the $20 additional charge on my credit card bill, I called the airline's customer service department and got no help. I was routed to the frequent flyer department and was told that I shouldn't be calling there. I registered a complaint online with American and received a reply saying that charging the $20 was airline policy.

I tried to dispute the charge on my credit card but was told that the airlines don't allow that. So.... this will be my last flight on American Airlines.

unfortunetly i think your out of luck. its on the website that they charge $20 fee for calling:

Q: Are there any charges associated with tickets issued by reservations offices, airport locations or American Airlines Travel Centers? A: AA Reservations

• A $20 USD charge applies for locations in the U.S. Puerto Rico, Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. (Due to government and market requirements, a higher charge may be charged in Colombia and Chile.)
• A charge of $20 USD will also apply when our reservations representatives assist with voluntary itinerary changes when the reservation was not created by American Airlines Reservations or on AA.com.
• A service charge may apply for tickets issued through locations in Europe, based on your reservation details

I booked with direct air out of RFD for my aunt to punta gorda and
didnt realise that they charge $10 for booking online, but there it was on the website.

That makes no sense whatsoever. What bank issued the card?

I hope it is not the American Airlines Credit Union's bank.

it sounds like the OP was not charged for talking to an agent, that is normally reserved for new bookings. what it sounds like from my experience in the airline industry is the OP is being charged what airlines reffer to as an External Reissue Charge. which is an additional fee on top of the Administrative Service Charge of $150. it's basically charged when the customer books their ticket through a travel agency instead of directly with the airline. the concept is to try to get you to go back to your travel agency as they can reissue your ticket as well. unless you're going through orbitz, expedia, or something like that. you usually won't be charged by the travel agency to make a change to your ticket. $20 is cheap compared to some airlines who charge an additional $50 for the External Reissue Charge.

You're right, wk. AA's website specifically states that the $20 telephone booking fee doesn't apply to re-issued tickets. So why was she charged the agency re-issue fee without being told by the AA representative? Is it something they do not have to advise you of any more? Second, if she wasn't advised of the fee why would the bank refuse to dispute the charge? My advice to the OP is to write a letter to AA and include a copy of the $20 charge you were assessed. If you were truly not advised of the fee during the telephone call they can probably verify that since most call centers record their calls these days. Also contact the credit card issuer again. If you weren't advised of the charge and didn't approve it then you have every right to dispute it.

disclosure of the specific fee is not a requirement. the OP may have just had a case of only hearint what they want to hear, and then getting confused when they got their credit card bill. the ERC was not in Delta's automated system for a long time, so it was always a seperate charge on the cc statement. what i'm trying to say for example is the OP may have been told and just not realized they were.

if they were misquoted i agree they should get their money back. but some people simply don't realize that they are being charged correctly.

for example $150 change fee plus $20 external fee and $100 difference in fare. they were probably told by the agent it will be $270 to change your ticket. they said okay and gave over their credit card number. and now they get their bill it shows up as a charge for $250 and a charge for $20. so they think they've gotten an extra miscellaneous charge, but they didn't because they were quoted the $270 (not saying this is what happened but is a situation i have come accross a few times)

i'm not sure if any of what i just said made sense.....i'm going back to bed and taking a nap

Makes perfect sense however, in my experience, even the change fee is a separate line item charge from any difference in fare. So in your example there would be one charge for the $150 change fee, one for the $20 "purchased somewhere other than AA" fee, and a third charge for the $100 fare difference.

you're right, it just happens to vary by airline, i know delta used to have the two seperate charges, now we just have it all lumped into one charge, makes it easier on everyone