Airline Group booking problems

[Geoff Oldfield]

I am organising a group trip to the Bahamas next year and have booked with American Airlines Group Booking Service. Between the time of obtaining the quote and getting all the deposits in, British Airways, who were providing the flight from Manchester to London increased their fare by over 100%, actually it was only from ?40 to ?89 for that part of the trip but represented ?200 to one family. Ok, we all had to accept that we had taken three weeks to get the deposits in so we went ahead. One week after the deposit was paid, American Airlines Revenue Management Department decided to re-route our flight via JFK instead of a direct flight from London to Miami resulting in a 19 hour journey just to get to Maimi. By now I was on the point of cancelling the whole thing and searching other airlines for alternative flights and quotes. However American Airlines finally came back to me with an alternative route flying direct from Manchester to Chicago with an overnight stay in Chicago rather than Miami, flying on to Miami and Freeport the following day.

My point I suppose, is you can now see why Richard Branson is against the AA/BA linkup, because once you are in the system, you have your hands tied.

Geoff

[Dave]

I am organising a group trip to the Bahamas next year and have booked with American Airlines Group Booking Service. Between the time of obtaining the quote and getting all the deposits in, British Airways, who were providing the flight from Manchester to London increased their fare by over 100%, actually it was only from ?40 to ?89 for that part of the trip but represented ?200 to one family. Ok, we all had to accept that we had taken three weeks to get the deposits in so we went ahead. One week after the deposit was paid, American Airlines Revenue Management Department decided to re-route our flight via JFK instead of a direct flight from London to Miami resulting in a 19 hour journey just to get to Maimi. By now I was on the point of cancelling the whole thing and searching other airlines for alternative flights and quotes. However American Airlines finally came back to me with an alternative route flying direct from Manchester to Chicago with an overnight stay in Chicago rather than Miami, flying on to Miami and Freeport the following day.

My point I suppose, is you can now see why Richard Branson is against the AA/BA linkup, because once you are in the system, you have your hands tied.

No. He claims to be against it since it gives them a large market share between them. Why did you accept the change from a non-stop? is the route being withdrawn?.

You have had the opportunity to cancel when the changes occurred so you havent been tied into it, you could have found another carrier rather than go with a MAN-ORD-MIA.

I don't see why you have an overnight stop in ORD, why arnt you connecting from AA55 to either AA2066 or AA1369 both of which will get you into MIA that evening?


Dave

[Geoff Oldfield]

Hi Dave, I expect that the airline probably found that there was sufficient client demand on the direct London - Miami flight to increase the fares. We tried arguing with the travel agent but they simply said the decision was out of their hands.

Yes I did try to obtain flights with other carriers, all of which were way outside our price window. Virgin being the only one that was even close.

The reason for the overnight stopover is simply because we can't access our accomodation until the Saturday afternoon and an overnight stopover breaks the journey up.

My beef really is that AA and other airlines laid up massive parts of their fleet and personnel and are trying desperately to make their operation profitable, with the result that customers who are being quoted a price are having changes to their schedule without recompense. As you say, you can always cancel. But I have to say, the travel agency, particularly Teresa from Getaway(name dropping) worked hard to resolve the problem to my satisfaction.

Geoff