This morning I was “force downgrade”out of a revenue first class ticket on American. I ended up on Delta in coach. How does American determine if I am due a refund and how much?

So are you saying you were downgraded because you were re-booked on another airline?....

Yes, the original flight was delayed and we would miss connect at DFW. There were no
other first class seats so they flipped us to
Delta in coach.

The only coach seats AA had were going into a snow storm at PHL.

I was on a delayed Delta flight. Not weather related. The flight was so late my connect was below the minimum connect time by about 20 minutes. The app advised me and said you are eligible for reacommodation. It said if I reaccomodate I will not receive a refund for any seat upgrades purchased. WTF is that? It's their delay and they force reaccom me in to Basic Economy, but I'm not entitled to a refund of a seat upgrade? Can't be legal can it?

It’s always annoying to be downgrades. But the airline is not setting out to screw anyone. Contact Delta and explain the situation. You will get a refund or voucher. Usually it’s based on the difference between first class and and advance purchase Econ (rather than the walk up price).

Keep in mind that the airline can’t magically open an F seat if there are none.

To be clear American is the offender here. Delta saved the day. I have contacted AA but they won’t deal with this until travel is complete.

adh214 wrote:

Yes, the original flight was delayed and we would miss connect at DFW. There were no
other first class seats so they flipped us to
Delta in coach.

The only coach seats AA had were going into a snow storm at PHL.

It partially depends on why the flight was late, if it was not controllable by the airline and if you chose to re-route via DL, you are more or less out. Your only protection would have been if you had gone to DFW and chose to be rebooked by AA onto a coach AA segment, then you would have been entitled to a Downgrade voucher but no refund. Based on what you've said, you were not a downgraded passenger though and not entitled to any compensation. Now if you were "forced" to take the Y class seat on DL, then you could write to Customer Relations for AA and request a refund for the difference in fare but it doesn't sound like you would apply.

You can read through the entire AA Conditions of Carriage (which determine oversale compensations, etc.) at https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-servic ... rriage.jsp

enilria wrote:

Can't be legal can it?

Is it right? No. Is it legal? Sure. Read the fine print in the contract you "signed" when you purchased your ticket. It's similar to passengers who pay Delta a $25 fee to for the service of transporting their checked bags from point A to point B. If Delta loses their bag or puts it on the wrong plane customers are always surprised to find out that Delta keeps the $25 paid for a service regardless of whether they actually provide the service or not.

alasizon wrote:

adh214 wrote:

Yes, the original flight was delayed and we would miss connect at DFW. There were no
other first class seats so they flipped us to
Delta in coach.

The only coach seats AA had were going into a snow storm at PHL.

It partially depends on why the flight was late, if it was not controllable by the airline and if you chose to re-route via DL, you are more or less out. Your only protection would have been if you had gone to DFW and chose to be rebooked by AA onto a coach AA segment, then you would have been entitled to a Downgrade voucher but no refund. Based on what you've said, you were not a downgraded passenger though and not entitled to any compensation. Now if you were "forced" to take the Y class seat on DL, then you could write to Customer Relations for AA and request a refund for the difference in fare but it doesn't sound like you would apply.

You can read through the entire AA Conditions of Carriage (which determine oversale compensations, etc.) at https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-servic ... rriage.jsp

I was told the flight was late because of crew rest. It just seems wrong that I can pay hundreds of dollars extra for first and then be told...tough luck.

adh214 wrote:

To be clear American is the offender here.

I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it. Most people recall that the DL/AA interlining agreement ended when DL demanded a premium based on their analysis that AA sent more passengers to DL than DL sent to AA. In the past week we've had two unique threads about IRROPS and interlining. One was a delayed DL flight RDU-ATL connecting to PHX. DL told the passenger -- a platinum, no less -- to go home and come back and try again 13 hours later. Only later rebooking on AA after the customer demanded it. In this case, AA immediately rebooked you on DL. We can now see why AA interlines more passengers than DL. But the question is -- would you rather have travelled another airline as close as possible to your original arrrival time, or travelled in F as booked, 13+ hours later?

IPFreely wrote:

adh214 wrote:

To be clear American is the offender here.

I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it. Most people recall that the DL/AA interlining agreement ended when DL demanded a premium based on their analysis that AA sent more passengers to DL than DL sent to AA. In the past week we've had two unique threads about IRROPS and interlining. One was a delayed DL flight RDU-ATL connecting to PHX. DL told the passenger -- a platinum, no less -- to go home and come back and try again 13 hours later. Only later rebooking on AA after the customer demanded it. In this case, AA immediately rebooked you on DL. We can now see why AA interlines more passengers than DL. But the question is -- would you rather have travelled another airline as close as possible to your original arrrival time, or travelled in F as booked, 13+ hours later?

I would have rather been provided the service I paid for. If I wanted I wanted a coach ticket, I would have bought one six months ago when I booked the trip.

If you go to a restaurant and order steak, the waiter tells you they are out of steak so you order chicken instead, you don’t expect to be charged for steak.

You could have rode first class and missed your connection. Want do you want from AA? They said to wait until travel is complete.

adh214 wrote:

I would have rather been provided the service I paid for. If I wanted I wanted a coach ticket, I would have bought one six months ago when I booked the trip.

Delays happen. If you wanted to fly first class I'm sure AA would have let you, knowing you would have missed your connection and you would have had to wait for the next available flight. Which may have been a few hours later or a day later.

adh214 wrote:

If you go to a restaurant and order steak, the waiter tells you they are out of steak so you order chicken instead, you don’t expect to be charged for steak.

You yourself posted that AA will deal with it when your travel is complete. That means they will reimburse you the difference between first class and coach for the leg(s) of your trip that were downgraded. You're ranting about nothing.

Ugh. Reading this thread reminds me of why flying in the US is such a miserable experience. I feel your pain, adh214

How does AA calculate the fare difference to refund? The cheapest economy fare available at the time of booking? That seems like the only fair outcome.

Oh well, at least you didn't have profanities yelled at you.