⛑️Consumer Rescue Presents 🛟
Tales from Consumer Advocacy Land
Real stories. Real Rescues. Real advice.
Who knew?! AA flight credit comes with an expiration date
☃️ Hey there, friends! Happy Monday from snowy New Jersey!
We regularly hear from travelers who are shocked to learn —too late — that their stored airline credits come with expiration dates. In some cases, passengers have watched thousands of dollars in flight credit disappear.
In today’s featured article, I share the story of a wife who was focused on caring for her husband during his battle with cancer and understandably missed the expiration date on nearly $3,000 in American Airlines credit. The good news: her husband became well enough to travel. The bad news: when she finally began planning the long-awaited family trip, American Airlines told her the credit had permanently expired.
So did American Airlines make an exception and restore the funds — and what can you do to make sure this doesn’t happen to you? Find out today.
‼️✈️ Next, still on the American Airlines theme: Airlines don’t allow customers to sell or barter their points, credits, or vouchers.
One AAdvantage member learned this the hard way when her daughter put her mother’s vouchers up for sale in a Facebook group. Someone reported the listing to American Airlines — and the airline promptly zapped the value. Here’s what you need to know about what happens if you break the rules tied to your travel credit.
✈️💸 And one more American Airlines tale to round out today’s newsletter. Paper vouchers can be tricky to redeem, often requiring travelers to mail them in and then wait for tickets to be processed. It’s not a particularly customer-friendly — or modern — way to handle flight credit, which is why American Airlines is phasing them out.
Still, one family was holding nearly $9,000 in paper vouchers, saved for a dream trip to Hawaii. Find out what put their entire vacation in jeopardy — and whether the situation was fixable.
Enjoy!
This Week’s Fiascos and Fixes 🔍
No one could fault Kristina for overlooking the expiration date on her family's $2,622 American Airlines travel credit. For over a year, Kristina was in crisis mode after her husband's brain cancer diagnosis. Of course, during that time, taking a vacation was last on her list of things to do.
When doctors deemed Kristina's husband well enough to travel, her mind turned back to their AA credit. She intended to use it to book flights for a memorable trip while her spouse could enjoy it. Unfortunately, by then the expiration date had come and gone.
Michelle Couch-Friedman, Chief Fiasco Fixer
Attention all American Airlines passengers: If you have any flight vouchers stored away somewhere, don't try to sell them. If you do, the airline might use high-tech security systems to catch you.
If you try it and American Airlines finds out, it will mark your vouchers stolen, leaving you with nothing (MCF)
A passenger returned home from his latest Royal Caribbean cruise with a $16,000 diamond necklace he purchased on the ship. But all was not as it seemed. He says salespeople inside the Effy jewelry shop aboard Utopia of the Seas wildly overinflated the value of that necklace.
When Locklear took his sparkly souvenir to a local jewelry appraiser, he received shocking news.
Old-school scammers are trying to get back in the (con) game and, surprisingly, they're doing it via snail mail. Here's what you need to know about the inheritance scam, delivered straight to your home by the USPS.
Michelle Couch-Friedman, Chief Fiasco Fixer🤓
The comment section is open 💬🗣️
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📬 The Editor’s Mailbag
This week, in our insider section, a reader has a question about why American Airlines asked her to pay more to make her ticket refundable.
Question:
Hi Michelle, and happy holidays!
I thought I read that airlines are required to give refunds, not travel credits. Why are they charging an extra $300 to get a refund to the original form of payment???
Thanks,
Best regards,
Laurie
Michelle answers:
Hi Laurie,
That rule only applies when the passenger cancels the ticket. Paying the extra $300 allows you to receive a cash refund if you need to cancel. If you don’t pay the $300 and later cancel your flight, you’ll receive a travel credit instead.
If the airline cancels your flight, it doesn’t matter whether you paid the $300 or not — you are owed a cash refund.
Happy holidays to you, too!🎄
Until next time 😃
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Of course, you can always reach me at [email protected]
Your friend and loyal consumer advocate,
Michelle Couch-Friedman
Founder/CFF (Chief Fiasco Fixer) 😛
917-841-0583
The Consumer Rescue newsletter and the articles you read on the site are fine-tuned by a team of absolutely wonderful editors (and my friends): Art Ellis, Karen Roberts, Irene Rawlings, Wendie Feinberg, Tanya Anticevic, Jennifer Finger, Robyn Whittingham, Teri Bergin, Dwayne Coward, and Chip Elam. ❤️ |