[AAhaternow]

On July 16th my family and I flew from Austin to Tampa for vacation using AA miles. Two days earlier, on the 14th, I received an email upgrade notification. The notification seemed odd to me since I've flown AA for 20 years and am very familiar with their rules but thought that maybe the rules had changed. After arriving at the ticket counter I was informed by the agent, her first name was Judy but she would not give me her last name (Hispanic women in her 40's, overweight, short dark hair with glasses), that we would not be receiving the upgrade and that we'd lost the seats I chose on the website and my family would be seated all over the two flights to Tampa. When I protested she began blaming me, saying that I shouldn't have checked the upgrade box on the website. Knowing that it was impossible to request an upgrade online using miles I then became angry and demanded to see a supervisor. She came back out 10 minutes later and says it will be another 20 minutes. The supervisor finally came out and did nothing to help, even when Judy threatened to have me arrested. The agent doesn't have a clue how the website works and now she taunts me into becoming angry and then threatens to have me arrested? I have 1.6M miles with AA and have never lost my cool, but I've never been treated this way either, by ANY airline.

I used to feel sorry for AA employees since many of their issues are out of their control but not anymore. They openly mock and ridicule AA management, especially over the bonus payouts to executives, and now it's reaching the customer level. One attendant on a flight I recently took openly announced her displeasure with the bonus issue over the intercom as we were landing. These people don't like their management or their jobs and it shows.

No more loyal customer here though. I've already made 4 trips since then, all on Southwest, and will continue to do so. They sing to you instead of complaining.

[Eagleguy]

I'd like to explain a few things that happened that day for you. It is true that AA employees don't know how the website works. We aren't ever trained on it nor we do we use it ourselves. However, the agent should have been aware of how upgrades work and broken the news in a better way that your upgrades weren't secured. As a ticket counter agent and a gate agent I have been yelled at a lot when cancellations or delays happen, but I have only used the "arrest" threat once. (Ironically, that was towards another employee who should have known the rules even more than paying passengers.) So unless you were yelling at her and using profanity, she shouldn't have done that. Finally, up until the day of departure the first two rows and last two rows of the aircraft are blocked, so no prereserved seats. This is due to the fact that we may need to allow passengers with limited mobility to sit in the front, and also the last two rows of the aircraft are undesirable. So unless those seats had already been unblocked and given out for legitimate reasons, it would be possible for her to unblock them at the counter and assign your family those seats together. It has happened to me where there are absolutely no seats together, and all I can do is recommend asking someone to switch with you.

[AAhaternow]

Thanks for the response Eagleguy; I appreciate your insight.

For the record, I did not yell or use profanity. I did become very agitated which must have seem like aggressive posturing from someone who is 6'2" and 250 pounds.

Bottom line is the Platinum desk made a mistake and no one was willing to admit to it or correct it in a way that would remotely resemble real customer service. The airlines, particularly AA, have been given a pass for so long that they treat all issues the same, be it delays, mechanical issues, their error or whatever. What they don't get is that just because it's their "policy" in how the issue is addressed doesn't mean it's good customer service or good business. There's AA customer service; get 'em on, get 'em off, and don't complain about our methods since you got a seat, and there's everybody else. We've all been dumbed down to believe this is reasonable. Unfortunately you and your co-workers are caught in the crossfire. I'm not sure I could work for someone who treats both their employees and customers the way this airline does so you have my respect and my pity. Good luck to you.

[Eagleguy]

Thankfully my local management is really great. She cares for us as persons and makes sure we all get home safely at the end of the day.

A lot of our agents are jaded, especially in the hubs...That's unfortunate. However, at the end of the day that agent is a person and anyone can be rude and mean. Every single day I see the same Delta agent next to me be a COMPLETE witch to her passengers. There's an agent down at Northwest that I consistently avoid. There is also an American Airlines Customer Service Manager in Chicago that I absolutely despise. She was rude even to me as an employee. What idiot gave her that job?!

It's the service industry...I'm sure people at the Gap or S&S Tire have bad days too.