[proteus]

Both my wife and I have elite status with American Airlines and we are very unhappy with the way we were treated by the AA representative (Ms. Germaine O'Donnell - American Airlines Advantage phone line). Not only she was patronizing but she was everything else but helpful. After reviewing the American Eagle flight on-time performance and our recent experience flying to and from Hawaii (also on American Airlines), we asked to be moved from 11:50AM to 9:50AM to have more time to catch our flight from Dallas to Frankfurt. Early flight adds two hours to our trip and we are willing to do that although we are traveling with our 19-months old daughter. Ms. O'Donnell told me that since I want to change the outbound flight (flight from Shreveport, LA to Dallas with other flights remaining the same), she would have to cancel my reservation and issue me a new ticket at $4000+. WOW! What a change! Our original ticket cost just over $800. She said that there is no way to change it - well, the other representative did offer us a $150 fee for changing the initial flight from SHV to DFW and also advised us that we can utilize a no cost stand-by option at the airport on the day of departure. This is what I call customer service... something Ms. O'Donnell really needs to learn about.

Okay, I think that there is more to this. I believe that since passengers who are just initiating their travel are not entitled to any compensation, airlines use such feeder flights to make room on their overbooked/oversold flight from major hubs. So, if the flight or flights from point A to B is oversold, they simply cancel or delay a couple of connecting lights with passengers to board flight from point A to B. I may have discovered something that is widely known but anyway. Moreover, I believe that they also cancel flights to combine passengers of two connecting flights on one flight (why send a flight from Dallas to Shreveport at 7:30AM and 10:00AM, if there is only one airplane worth of passengers waiting for the 11:00AM flight from Shreveport to Dallas). Economically, this makes sense. However, ethically, this is not right and I hope that this is not the case.

I takes a lot for me to write a complaint but this time I do it without any hesitation. This customer representative simply drives customers to AA's competitors.

Kind regards,

:-(