The Trick American Airlines Uses To Sell You A Better Seat – Not Give It To You – And Keep Your Money – View from the Wing

When American Airlines sells you something and doesn’t deliver it, their position is often that they get to keep the money. If what they don’t deliver is something they promised as part of your ticket then it isn’t covered by the Department of Transportation’s new rules on fees.

First class promises a meal but doesn’t obligate American to provide it. A ticket means travel, not travel in an actual seat. When a customer complained that their flight didn’t get the promised meal in first class, American said “Our ticket price reflects the cost of transportation. Any meals and snacks served on our flights are considered complimentary conveniences.”
Coach class promises transportation, but doesn’t obligate American to provide a seat for it.When a mom flew American Airlines from Portland to Dallas to Tallahassee with her two 18 month old twins, she bought one of them a seat (only one child is allowed to fly on her lap). A flight attendant wouldn’t allow her to use the seat, claiming (incorrectly) that children under two weren’t allowed in seats without a car seat. Fortunately a friendly stranger helped out, letting one of the kids fly on their lap. American refused to refund the paid seat – claiming that the child had received transportation.

If you purchase an extra legroom or other ‘preferred’ seat on the seat map, and you don’t get to use it, American has to refund the seat fee. But American also sells ‘fare bundles’. The Main Plus fare comes with an extra legroom seat, checked bag, and earlier boarding.

If American doesn’t give you the extra legroom seat you’ve chosen, that you’ve purchased as part of that fare, they… won’t refund the money. The airline says that since it’s a “bundled package” they don’t provide refunds when they fail to deliver the products included with the bundle.

Buyer Beware: when you purchase a Main Cabin Extra seat on @AmericanAir, what do you think you are purchasing? Most would say “a seat with more legroom”

That’s wrong. My wife recently paid for MCE, but the seat was broken, so they moved her to economy, and won’t give a refund pic.twitter.com/4FRFFTrKtM

— Jeremy ‘adjusted for inflation’ Horpedahl (@jmhorp) June 26, 2024

Here’s the page describing the bundle of services. No mention that you might not get the seat you paid for!https://t.co/cx3gtrmrbM

— Jeremy ‘adjusted for inflation’ Horpedahl (@jmhorp) June 26, 2024

Beware buying American Airlines Main Plus fares! Airlines advertise one thing to convince you to buy a ticket, and to spend more. And they deliver something else. One of the most common occurrences is advertising their most comfortable seats to get you to spend more to upgrade from coach to first class, and then delivering something entirely different.

For instance this was a pitch to upgrade to first class on a standard American Airlines domestic Airbus A321. You’re shown a lie flat seat that’s only on the Airbus A321T which operates mostly between New York JFK and premium West Coast markets.

Customers spending the extra money based on what American shows them get this instead:

And too often they get this:

People often blame deregulation for problems with airlines, but that misunderstands the issue. Many problems actually stem from the Airline Deregulation Act itself, but it’s not lack of rules in the industry. Airlines are one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. The Department of Transportation just issued new rules over how airlines handle fees. But they don’t apply to bundled fares.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Airline Deregulation Act’s pre-emption of state-level regulation of schedules and pricing to also mean that most common law tort claims against airlines are pre-empted as well.

While myriad federal rules for airlines have largely grown over the past 46 years, regulation via tort is lacking. Customers have a much harder time suing an airline. Airlines are no longer subject to common law duties of good faith and fair dealing.