[chigirl]

I have a Platinum AAdvantage card, which entitles me to reduced mileage award travel, group 1 boarding and first bag free. I recently booked a flight using the reduced mileage perk and asked the agent if the group 1 boarding and free bag applied with award travel and she confirmed that they indeed do. (First frustrating problem - when booking reduced mileage award travel there is no way to do so online so you are forced to call, incurring a $25 fee to talk to someone. Ridiculous)

When I checked in for my 2-leg flight, I was not in group 1 boarding. I was too busy to deal with it and was carrying on so let it go. When checking in for return flights I had the same issue. I called the AAdvantage desk and they said they didn't know why. They saw that my card was linked to my AAdvantage number and that I am entitled to these benefits. She transferred me to "AA.com" and I got the same answers. "Sorry, we don't know why...just tell the gate agent". Finally, after spending 30 useless minutes on the phone she said, "did you just tell someone to add your AAdvantage number to the reservation?". NO...I did not. Apparently now this is my fault because I didn't tell the reservation agent, who I had to pay $25 to make my reservation, to add my AAdvantage number to the reservation. Obviously I would assume this is standard procedure if not automatic! Again, I called the AAdantage desk to make an AAdvantage Award Travel Reservation and I didn't get my due perks because I didn't specifically ask them to add my AAdvantage number to the reservation. Absolutely ridiculous. In the end, they could or would not change this reservation to reflect the proper boarding number.

Two e-mails to the AAdvantage help desk told me they could not help me and to call the exact same number I called and got this answer from.