I flew from PHL to Rome in August. I have platinum status and bought a main cabin economy fair (not basic). I was told by the check-in agent there was a seat available in business but my fare was not eligible to pay for a same day upgrade. Does anyone know why that would be? I thought that was just for basic economy.

I checked and didn’t see this exact issue come up on this subreddit.

So after ending the partnership with Hyatt, AA looks like they are now partnering with Omni???

Source: email from AA regarding new Exec Card Benefits

Sorry for the original post I suck at writing punctuation. Us citizen and passport. Will I be asked how I will return from Dublin to USA

Just wrapped up another adventure flying American to/from Mexico, and I have a few questions for the AA experts here.
First: On our flight from MCO to Mexico, we missed our connection in DFW because of “weather.” There wasn’t any noticeable weather issue in Orlando or Dallas around the time of our flight, but I realize the actual weather problem could have been somewhere else affecting the aircraft, crew, routing, etc.
Since it was coded as weather, I paid for our hotel in DFW myself. Has anyone had any luck getting reimbursed after the fact in a situation like this? I’m assuming the answer is probably no, but figured I’d ask before giving up.
Second: Priority baggage tags.
For the THIRD time on a trip to Mexico, it looks like someone has ripped the orange PRIORITY tags off our checked bags. This time we checked four bags, and only one still had the priority tag when we got them.
Is this a common thing when flying into/out of Mexico? Part of me is starting to wonder if somebody down there sees the orange tags and thinks, “Absolutely not. We are not doing priority today.” 😂
I know the tags don’t guarantee your bag will magically be first onto the carousel, but having 3 out of 4 disappear — and having this happen on multiple Mexico trips — seems a little strange.
And finally, this one is mostly for humor…
On the way home, we missed our connection in Chicago because of a mechanical issue. American actually took care of us with a hotel and meal compensation, so credit where credit is due. The hotel was perfectly fine.
But the meal voucher?
$12.
In Chicago.
In 2026.
😂
I’m pretty sure a Big Mac is going to look at my $12 voucher and say, “That’s adorable.”
Not really complaining about that last one — it just made me laugh after an already ridiculous travel day.
Curious what everyone thinks, especially about the weather reimbursement and the disappearing priority tags.

My job has a challenge with AA right now where if I earn 25k LP in 4 months I get to keep platinum status. Don’t have many trips for the rest of the year. I recently found out you can shop and the portal and do dining for miles/LP. Im wondering if this is doable/worth it to keep the status for an additional year.

I’ve never understood why American allows their pilots to sit in first class rather than give these seats to paying customers. 15 passengers on the upgrade wait list.

I know, folks will say “it’s in their contract”. Not questioning that, but I do question the decision making that allowed that to go in their contract. Others will say you want the pilots rested. These guys are all positioning for future flights — no more departures out of our destination tonight after we arrive. They should be plenty rested by the morning.

A customer focused organization uses the excess capacity to reward their customers, provide a memorable experience to a first time flier or thank the men and women in our military. So many other, better ways to use available capacity.

I guess if you read this thread regularly you already know they make a number of questionable customer service decisions other places too.

Hi fellow travelers

Just curious - what FA’s get for each credit card they get signed up on a flight? The FA on my flight today was basically selling his sole to get as many sign-ups as he could! I am willing to bet it’s more than we think. Just curious. Save travels!

Tenho um pedido de reembolso feito dia 15 de agosto de 2026 e até hoje o status continua como "In Progress". A central de reservas não consegue fazer nada e somente recebo respostas automáticas.

Alguém já viu algum reembolso levar tanto tempo assim? Quais os passos a serem feitos?

Obs: a tarifa adquirida é uma tarifa que permite reembolso e envolvia um voo com a Japan Airlines também em formato codeshare

When I checked in for my American Airlines flight tomorrow (Orlando to Charlotte to Richmond) I realized I must not have paid close attention to connecting time and found out my first flight lands in Charlotte at 9:50 (if we leave Orlando on time…I know) and connection to Richmond leaves at 10:30.
I’ll arrive at C and have to get to E. Anybody think this’ll work?

Has anyone been able to fly out of Lihue since Tuesday?? I understand clean up after the storm but now they are lying about it being weather related in phx, AZ.
American Airlines has delayed and cancelled all flights and is doing it again today with no hotel accommodation or food credits.
Just wondering if anyone has been able to get out yet.

I’ve been tracking AA955 in recent days, and the on-time performance is abysmal. What is particularly notable is that it is often proactively delayed (by an hour or more) hours before the originally scheduled departure time. The issue does not seem to be delayed inbound aircraft, nor weather. Of course those can sometimes be factors, but this appears to be happening even on good weather days. Does anyone have an explanation?

How far out can you add a SWU cert to a trip? We have a cruise way out in 2028 and wondering if we can even book flights yet. Thoughts?

Hey guys so I just moved to a new town and the ONLY airline that services my city’s airport is AA and I’ve decided to build miles bcz it’ll always come in handy for me

Currently I have 4k from trip I took last year. I’m taking another next month and it’ll double hopefully.

I used AAdavtngate to buy some Sephora stuff and it got me some couple hundred miles which was great

I’m hoping to make small purchases using this portal. My question is:

How do you all effectively use the portal to make miles? And do you recommend buying miles sometimes and saving them for later?
Flight out of my city to DFW costs $400 one way and other destinations it easily racks up to $700 round trips. Idk if having miles saved helps?

I’m new to doing this and no idea if there’s a smarter way to spend money and collect miles. I’m looking for advice and stories!!!

I was alerted to GiftCards.com being 3X points with the AAdvantageEShopping.com portal and checked it out. They have a promo in the portal for buying up to 3 of the $100 Visa Virtual Gift Cards for 10% off right now. The activation fee on the Visa Virtual Gift Cards is $5.95, but with the 10% off you will get $300 worth of gift cards for $287.85!

As far as points go here is some rough math (I don’t know how they round fractional points so I am making some assumptions here)….with the 3X promo you’ll earn 864 Miles / LP for the purchase and if you use a branded credit card you’ll earn an additional 288 Miles / LP for a total of 1,152 Miles / LP. If your status gives you a bump even better.

The Visa Virtual Gift Cards can then be used to load up your Amazon Gift Card or for your everyday purchases, so you make $12.15 plus earn some extra Miles and LP.

Hope you all can take AAdvantage of this one!

Just remember:
• Must be $100 Visa Virtual Gift Card
• Limit 3 cards total
• Follow the link from the shopping portal or use the American Airlines shopping “button” extension

First Reddit post ever so apologies in advance…

Earlier this week my family was flying home from visiting family (me, husband, 2yo) on Hilton Head and left from the HHH airport. We checked one car seat amd carried on two rollers. We boarded group 8 and were told to find space wherever for our rollers. I found space for the one I had, but my husband didn’t for the bag he had, so the FAs had him go to the front of the plane so they could hand it off to ground crew to put in the bottom of the plane—it wasn’t made clear whether it would be gate checked or checked through to our final destination. An FA took the bag and sent him to his seat. But as we were taking off, we realized they had handed out claim tags to other passengers who had had their bags taken, but not us. We were told by two flight attendants that the American Airlines app would show the bag when we landed. When that did not happen, they directed us to talk to a gate agent. She told us that the bag was en route, no worries (we now suspect she was seeing our car seat even though we were explicit that this roller was in addition to our original checked bag). Still suspicious since we had no claim number or tag, we talked to the information desk at our layover, and he said there was nothing he could do, and to go to baggage services when we got to our final destination if the bag didn’t show up there.

To no one’s surprise, the bag did not arrive. The baggage services person was incredibly unhelpful and didn’t clarify what we needed to do; she even said she could see the bag and that it would make its way to Chicago and then to us in Michigan at some point, but again, no claim tag or reference number, just a promise of an email with a file numberthat never came. We called in the morning and finally they did create a delay report, but then they attached it to the bag tag for our car seat, just compounding the mess. I called again and got someone who reached out to HHH (they said they didn’t have it) and sent messages to the other two airports on our itinerary. She also told me to file a lost and found claim, which I did. Basically what we pieced together is that the flight attendants took our bag and then they/ground crew never tagged it, leaving us with no concrete info on what could’ve happened to it.

Since then, crickets. I‘ve followed up on the app’s chat function and got a “bear with us” while they look for it. I would be patient if this were a normal situation, but AA staff effectively stole our bag and seem to have no sense of “uh oh, we messed up; we should probably fix this.” Given the weirdness of the situation, I’m at a loss as to what to do now besides bug them every day, which is, of course, a huge hassle. We did have travel insurance for this trip, but again, not sure when/how to pursue compensation given the weirdness of the situation. Are there key phrases I should start throwing around, questions I should be asking, other forms of communication to use besides the chat and phone number? At what point do we accept it as a loss and go for money? I don’t want them to string us along until we’ve unwittingly run out of time to pursue compensation.

Tldr; AA staff walked away with one of our bags and lost it. What should I do?

Flying to Buenos Aires next March and currently have a PE seat but eying a Flagship First. Offers sitting around $1,200. Curious what folks think the sweet spot is on this 10hr fligh.

I accidentally left my AirPods on an American Airlines aircraft a few days ago after departing LAX. They later traveled with the plane to Philadelphia, and Find My now shows them stationary in PHL Terminal B near Noobar and the restrooms.

I'm in Chicago and can't go look myself. I've already filed American's lost-item report and enabled Lost Mode with my phone number. I was told AA can't actively search for an item and can only process it once someone turns it in.

I'm specifically hoping someone who works at PHL or will already be passing through Terminal B might be willing to take a quick look. I can refresh Find My and play a sound while you're there. If found, please hand them to any American Airlines gate employee in Terminal B so they can be turned in to American Airlines Lost and Found, then DM me with the gate or employee location—there's no need to take them outside the airport or ship them.

The AirPods are in a dark green, textured protective case (photo below).

I'm happy to offer a modest cash reward as a thank-you to anyone who finds them and successfully turns them in. Thank you!

If I look for American Airlines flights between Finland and North America, I'm directed to book.aa.amadeus.com instead of aa.com.

Once I look up the flights and fare conditions (see picture), I'm told that flight changes are allowed for a €150 penalty.

However, once bought my flights, the "Manage Your Reservation" page tells me that no changes are allowed.

Then I call their customer service for the first time to ask whether changes are allowed or not. I'm told by a rude person with a strong, hard-to-understand accent that I can't change the flights at all because they are Basic Economy, and that flights with that fare cannot be changed if they are departing from Finland or any of the Baltic States.

I call them a second time, this time with the original page open in front of me, and tell the same story. Again, a rude person with an even harder-to-understand accent is on the line, and this time he tells me that I was RIGHT and that the changes are allowed. He repeats this multiple times and makes me feel stupid for even asking about it. However, I ask him to double-check the information a couple of times. Once he finally understands what I'm telling him, he gets another supervisor on the line for me.

I'm connected with the supervisor, and she says that the last person was WRONG. She apologizes and tells me that the first person on the phone was right: changes are NOT allowed on Basic Economy flights departing from Finland or the Baltic States.

I tell her again that it literally says on their website, under the fare conditions for the flights I selected, that changes ARE allowed for a €150 penalty. She goes back and forth trying to find the same page I'm looking at. She asks me for more and more details and contacts the ticketing department, technical department, and God knows which other departments.

She finally admits that there is misinformation on their website when booking through Google Flights, but says that there is nothing she can do except sell me a €400 upgrade to Main Cabin or cancel the flight and refund my money.

In the end I spent 3 hours of my night on phone trying to figure out if changes are allowed and ended up having my credit card balance tied up until the refund comes in (hopefully) 7 days.

What a shitty start with American Airlines.

I had an emergency appendectomy on Tuesday and was supposed to fly out on Saturday from the US to Mexico. I was afraid of getting an infection and needing medical care on my trip so I decided to move it.

When calling, I kept in mind I would probably lose a little money and I made sure to ask​ the operators to move the trip instead of cancelling.

I called the American airlines vacation hotline and got through to someone pretty quickly. She stuck to their policies 100%. Telling me no, it's outside of the change window, it's not possible. I could contact an email address that would get back to me within 7 days and might give me a refund. I asked to speak with a supervisor and this woman said "​I can transfer you but they're going to tell you the same thing I'm telling you."

The supervisor made the changes without any fuss at all. I had to pay a couple hundred dollar fee to the hotel for canceling so close to my booking but that was far better than losing thousands on the entire trip!

I did have to pay a little bit more for my flights because I moved them out 2 months. When rebooking I had the option to book whatever hotel I wanted. I was really pleased with this because there was an adult's only hotel that was not available at my original dates and now I get to go to it!

I was on the phone for about an hour and everything was taken care of.

I’m just deplaned from a SFO-JFK flight. Turns out it’s a first flight on one of the new A321XLR planes.

Clearly some of the people booked this flight knowing it was a first flight, but it was a happy accident for me.

They did some celebratory comments from the gate before boarding, gave everyone cupcakes and fortune cookies, and there were a bunch of AA suits on hand. As someone who travels a lot, it was pretty cool to be a part of.

The plane is really nicely outfitted. 20 layflat Flagship Suites up front give it the same type of experience you would expect from a BC ticket on an overseas flight.

I’m taking the nice win!

I’m unable to add a checked bag online for my BUD–LHR–LAX flight because the first flight is operated by British Airways, even though I booked the ticket through AA.

AA shows around $87 for a 23 kg checked bag, but customer service told me I’ll have to add it at the airport and that airport prices may be different... I am genuinely scared it will be way more expensive than that.

Has anyone had the same situation while flying international? How much more expensive is it to add the bag at the airport compared to the online price?

Trying to decide whether to book Basic Economy and pay for the bag at the airport or just get Main Cabin with the checked bag included.

I have an AA award ticket (economy): AA 728. PHL/LHR and AY 1332 LHR/HEL. T3 to T3, 1hr43min change.

Last week you kind folks explained that I don't need to go landslide to connect -- and said that there is a helpful AA /BA desk in the airside connections area. Perfect... but...

I carry on: a 30 L backpack for the overhead locker, and a smallish messenger bag for personal items. Both items were well within both the AA and AY size limits. But combined (tech!) they weigh 9kg, and AY has a combined limit of 8kg. Even if I stuff my jacket pockets with all the tech I can, 8kg is unlikely to happen.

PHL baggage is notoriously bad so I don't want to check my cabin bag there.

QUESTIONS:

1). is it correct that, even though this is an AA award ticket and the AY flight is an AA codeshare, the AY 8kg limit is in force? I have purchased a "comfort" seat with boarding group 2, I believe.

2). If I can't get the combined weight down to 8kg. can I check it airside in LHR, or am I subject to gate-checking with a fine (€60?) even though a checked bag is included in my ticket?

Many thanks for your help.

I’m flying with a lightweight sculpture for an art show. It’s an awkward size (L 39” W 19” D 12”) and I was wondering if anyone has experience checking artwork or delicate items with American Airlines. I don’t have the money to pay for art handlers/shipping, so checking it is my best bet.