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July 18, 2008

American Airlines: Mexico and Caribbean Airfare Sale

Filed under: American, Caribbean, Mexico, Cheap Airfare Sales — mike @ 10:55 am

Sure, you could spend your fall vacation watching the leaves turn and preparing for the cold weather to come…or you could extend your summer a little longer and head to the beaches of Mexico and the Caribbean.

American Airlines fall airfare sale features cheap flights to sandy destinations like the Bahamas, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Jamaica, Cozumel, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, and many more.

Book your flight on American Airlines by July 31st for travel between September 2nd and December 10th, 2008. You’ll find flights for as low as $69+ each-way.

Visit American Airlines Fare Sales for more details.

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1 Comment »

After just returning from a trip from Houston to Mazatlan using American Airlines frequent flier miles, we discovered a few truths that I am sure would apply to these cheap fare sales that flyers should keep in mind.

1. When we attempted to redeem our miles and book the trip on the AA site, the reservation system responded in red letters that the system could not complete the transaction and to call reservations at the 800 number. Knowing that we would have to pay some taxes and fees, we were surprised to learn that a $15 charge was tacked on for each ticket of our family of three for calling reservations. A subsequent email requesting a refund of the $45 was made on the premise that aa.com could not complete the itinerary and that we were directed to call resulted in the following emails that, in part, stated:

We understand that the service charge is most objectionable when it is applied to AAdvantage-award tickets that cannot be booked online. Before we announced the implementation of the service fees, we carefully evaluated excluding tickets, such as those issued from Promotions or AAdvantage Airline Awards, that are not available on AA.com. Since the number of transactions that fits this criteria represents such a small percentage of our business, we felt that it would be less confusing overall to our members and employees if we went ahead and charged the fee for all award tickets initially issued through American’s U.S. reservations offices and airport locations. Since members typically book these types of awards in small quantities, we felt that the imposition of a modest fee would have little impact on the overall value of participating in promotions or using your AAdvantage miles to travel.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our rationale behind the service
fees. We appreciate your patronage as an AAdvantage member and look forward to your continued business.

Sincerely,

Barbara McKay
Customer Relations
American Airlines

and then:

While we can certainly understand your desire to receive a refund on the ticketing fee you were charged, we are unwilling to do so. Your comments regarding this policy have been forwarded to the appropriate personnel, and we are glad you took the time to provide them.

Sincerely,

Debbie Mahan
Customer Relations
American Airlines

Moral: American thinks that Im too stupid to discern when a fee would or would not be charged so theyre solution is to charge all calls made to reservations. Apparently, American management believe that their employees are also too stupid to tell the difference for the same reason. Its amazing that American doesnt charge bag fees for international flights using the same logic.

2. I believe that American will treat these fare sales in the same was as they for frequent flier redemptions by flying a passenger to fill space. Despite our early reservation, American flew us Houston-Dallas-Mexico City-Mazatlan (on Mexicana) despite having flights from Houston to Mexico City and Mexico City to Mazatlan, which resulted in the necessity of spending the night in a Mexico City hotel because of the flight times available.

Moral: Factor in potential overnight hotel costs when looking to save money on airfares on sale.

3. Though we graciously declined to purchase a $3 four ounce Megabite Cookie, a $4 3.55 ounce cheese and cracker tray or a $6 alcoholic beverage, we were surprised to see Mexicana wheel our the beverage cart and pass out complimentary alcoholic beverages.

Moral: No moral here. Just bewilderment of how a Mexican airline can provide such service when American doesnt.

Comment by David — July 18, 2008 @ 2:06 pm