Look, I know that we are in the Internet age where more than ever people seem insistent on getting their “15 minutes of fame”. And plus, with the advent of social media, it’s easier and easier for stories to go “viral” and get plenty of news coverage. I think it’s smart to approach any viral story or video that you see with a healthy dose of skepticism, since you generally only see one side of the story that comes out first. All too often, you see another side of the story come out (often with much less fanfare and promotion)
Man swears to “never fly American again”
So it was that lens that I read a story in Business Insider entitled I flew to Paris to pick up my 16-year-old daughter in July. After my return flight was delayed by 2 days, I swore to never fly American Airlines internationally again (yes, the title is that long – I don’t know why Insider insists on such super long post titles, but I digress…). The story is from 2023, and I post it now not because the incident itself is timely but the threat of “I’M NEVER FLYING <AIRLINE> AGAIN!” is a timeless one and IMO meaningless.
Carter Schoenberg is an AAdvantage Platinum member with American Airlines and was scheduled to fly from Paris to Chicago with his 16 year old daughter on American Airlines back on July 29th. But on the morning of his flight, he got a notice that his flight was cancelled, and he was rebooked on another flight two days later. The article talks about how he had to take an extra day off work, spend another night in Paris and that his daughter suffered anxiety due to the delay.
Mr. Schoenberg says that he will “refuse to book a ticket with American Airlines, no matter what, when I’m traveling abroad”.
Promising To Never Fly An Airline Again
So, again, it’s difficult to say exactly what happened here from just this article. It is human nature when telling a story to make yourself look as good as possible. Still, I think that in nearly all the situations, promises to “never fly that airline again” are baloney. In 95% of the cases, you will fly whatever airline gives you the best combination of price and schedule. This is not to mention that he’s an AA Platinum which likely gives him some elite benefits. I mean sure, if the price and schedule are similar, he may remember the previous cancellation and fly Delta or United, but if he can get a direct flight from Paris to Chicago for $500 less on AA than a connecting flight on Delta or United? He’s going to fly American.
At least I think that is the case for the vast majority of people. Maybe Mr. Schoenberg will read this article and make a comment about how he is the exception. I welcome the feedback! :-). All I know is that even my own sister swore she would never fly Frontier again (but then was right back to flying Frontier again because they were so much cheaper for her trip). It would be one thing if any particular airline was better or worse in this regard, but I have heard plenty of stories of just about every airline stranding passengers at some points.
What Could Have Been Done
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As I mentioned earlier, one thing that can possibly be done is file an EU261 claim. Mr. Schoenberg mentions in the article that he filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Transportation, but I doubt that either of those complaints will do anything for him. The article mentions that American canceled his flight due to “weather”, which, depending on what the actual cause of the weather delay was may or may not disqualify him from EU261 compensation.
Another thing that is always a good idea is to book your flights with a credit card that offers travel delay insurance. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card are two cards that I have that offer trip delay insurance. Again, it’s hard to tell exactly what happened from this article, but I used Capital One Venture X trip delay insurance which paid for a hotel night and food for my son when he was stranded in Charlotte due to (ironically enough) a delay on American Airlines.
(SEE ALSO: Misconnecting in Charlotte (I should have known…))
(SEE ALSO: Successfully Getting A Capital One Venture X Trip Delay Insurance Claim (Here’s How To Do It))
It’s certainly possible that paying for your flight with a card like the Venture X or Sapphire Preferred would have allowed you to pay for the extra hotel night plus reasonable food and other expenses due to the delay.
The Bottom Line
An American Airlines Platinum elite member had his flight from Paris to Chicago canceled and then was rebooked on another flight 2 days later. He swore that he would “refuse to book a ticket with American Airlines, no matter what, when I’m traveling abroad”, but I call shenanigans. I think that in the vast vast majority of cases, you will fly whatever airline gives you the best combination of price and schedule.
What do you think about claims of “never flying an airline again”? Leave your thoughts in the comments below
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The conclusion that the passenger will fly American Airlines again is not necessarily true. He is a higher level elite but he could be status matched with another airline. One could ask “did this passenger fly United or Delta in the 2 or 3 years prior to being mistreated by AA?” If the passenger didn’t fly UA or DL much, then it’s very possible that he could fly them and avoid AA.
I was treated poorly by AA before but I didn’t believe it warranted a total ban. Instead, I promised myself not to fly AA for 10 years. That 10 years was actually a little longer. Now, I am willing to fly AA.
If a passenger boycotts an airline on an international flight, there may be quite a few alternatives. For example, the passenger in this story lives in Chicago. If he had a future trip to Paris or London, there are many alternatives, including possibly JetBlue, United, Air France, British Airways, Air Canada, Delta, Icelandair, a number of other European carriers, etc. For domestic trips, he could fly mostly on United, Southwest, or a combination of other carriers, such as Delta / Alaska / JetBlue / even Spirit or Frontier.
I agree with this. It would be very easy for someone from Chicago to never fly AA internationally again. We have many options, and my experience is that AA is rarely the best option in terms of price/schedule, much less by such a substantial margin.
Still won’t fly Spirit, the trailer park of the skies.
I swore to never fly WN again and I havent flown them in over a decade.
I swore off Delta around five years ago and have not flown them since nor earned a Skymile even when very convenient. Sometimes you have to stand on principle, whether personally convenient or not. Never is a big word but it would take an awful lot for me to fly Delta again.
Yeah, I don’t buy that. I’ll never fly them again as a threat. Even as a 1 million diamond with Delta, I was slightly upset with all the changes to SkyPesos. But I just sat back and waited. Bottom line, I choose to fly Delta, and I will pay for the privilege of sitting where I want to sit, which I, for the most part, have been doing for the last several years, especially on long-haul four-class aircraft. But for me, Delta has always provided superior service. In the rare instance something went askew, they went above and beyond to solve it.
I said I would never fly AA again 19 years ago but was forced to about a year ago, so I bought through Alaska so they’d have to share revenue.
I live in PHL (and American hub city) and won’t give them a dime of my business. The last trip I took with them was in (paid) first class from PHL-ORD-DTW-PHL. I hadn’t had good experiences in the past, but I thought I’d give them one more chance. Everything- from checkin to security, to bag drop, to inflight service, to bag claim, was handled poorly- much more so than comparable experiences on Delta or United. Most employees (with the exception of a delightful check in agent in DTW and a kind flight attendant on PSA/Eagle on that same leg) acted like they were doing me a favor when they’d rather be doing something else- anything else. Some of this may be due to horrible relationships between employees and management (and it’s not right how AA treats its employees), but that doesn’t mean pass that treatment on to the passengers. So no, I haven’t flown AA since 2021 and don’t intend to anytime soon. I’m Gold Medallion with Delta and will take the train up to JFK before setting foot on an AA jet.
I live in Dallas which is why I will never be able to make a statement that I will never fly American (or Southwest again). The reality is American will always be my main airline
I disagree. I’m a MVPG 100k on AS (and a longtime MVP 75K before 100k was a status level). After countless clusters with AS and continual customer service nightmares I walked away from them in Mar 2023 (I had already requalified for 2024 status). I have gone out of my way to avoid flying them at all costs (UA loyalist now, I take a connection to avoid AS or the train if in WA). Over the summer I had a conflict during a work trip and my office rebooked me on an AS to get home (against my protest), so I extended my trip by a night so I could book my own ticket back to SEA on UA. Now I just need to burn all my AS points on OW/partners before AS goes bankrupt.