[sshanker]

My husband and I had a booked flight SFO-LAX at 9:45AM on Nov 19, 2010. We arrived at the AA counter at 9:10AM and we were denied boarding. At that time we're told that we should have arrived an hour before flight as required ( there is no such requirement)We're told to try standby and, if we wanted, we could pay $50 each and get another flight out for sure. The first flight after that one was late one hour and we didn't make it. We purchased tickets to the following flight that was supposed to depart around 2:30PM and left almost 4PM. We made it to that fight.

This is the game AA is playing: It is overbooking and not letting passengers in their flights. Furthermore they denied that we were bumped and instead, on emails the rep. first repeated the 60 min "rule". Once that didn't work (we took a LAX-SFO flight within 40 min a few days before and AA website recommends, but doesn't require a 60 min arrival time), then the latest email talks about a 30 minute "rule". AA reps are basically spinning around to justify bumping passengers like us without really technically "bumping" and they lie. Their own on-board magazine states clearly about a 15 minute before departure time that passengers are bumped. The latest email ignores AA own written 15 min rule and tries to divert attention stating a 30 minute that basically doesn't exist. It's all a dirty game to justify bumping passengers, not reporting them, not paying them and not complying with the law. Since we arrived within the 30n min rule with no checked in baggage, then the entire thing makes no sense.