[stlouisff]

I used some Advantage Miles to send my soon to be 11 year old daughter off to hang out with her favorite aunt in NC in August. Because we had to do it w/in 3 weeks I ended up paying the extra fee as well as the $100 each way fee for her to fly unaccompanied. More than the other airlines but so be it.

Her return flight was to get in to St Louis at 915pm so I called American to ask how much time to give myself in order to pick up a boarding pass to meet her at the gate. I was told 45 minutes so I made it an hour instead to give myself leeway. When I arrived at Lambert I found every one of the American counters closed and vacated so I proceeded to security where, after no help from a lazy agent, a TSA supervisor directed me to the baggage claim office. A couple trying to locate lost luggage was kind enough to allow me to interrupt- this being my daughter after all- and speak to the AA employee. This gentleman was familiar with the problem and said that AA always screws up and fails to tell people they need to get to the airport before the counters close at 8pm. He told me that I would need to wait at the construction exit that was some distance from the gate.
I was not happy with this since she was expecting me to meet her at the gate so I headed back to security to see if TSA could either allow me through or confirm that they would get word to my daughter as to where I would be meeting her.
(Oh, and there was another man there to pick up a non English speaking foreign exchange student having the same problems)
The TSA supervisor told me she couldn't help and that they would eventually figure out where to meet me, perhaps even hang out in the waiting area for a bit. Needless to say, I was not satisfied and have filed a complaint with the TSA as well.
I emailed Customer Service who did issue me a $100 voucher but did not address the issue and told me that I needed to take up the refund that I had asked for with the Customer Refund department.
Of course, the Customer Refund Dept has no toll free number, no email address and when you call and are to finally be connected with a human you get disconnected.
So, I'm complaining here and on their Facebook page where the told me to start again with an email to Customer Service which is where I started the merry go round in the first place.