It seems to me that you purchased the ticket on Nov. 7 last year. That is why you had to take care of the booking by that same date this year. How did you do this booking? At a ticket counter or on the phone? The airline makes every reasonable attempt to notify the customer about confirmations to make sure errors are not made or corrected in decent time frame. I am sorry to hear about your situation. Here is a link that may provide further information about the policy.
http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?...OfCarriage.jsp
about 3/4 of the way down their is a subsection "period of validity" that states the issue you are addressing.