I got this email today -- some might be interested...


Get American's Lowest Fares At AA.com
It's Guaranteed.

We're committed to saving you time and money by making AA.com® your one-stop shop for finding the best fares. And now, we even guarantee that you'll find the lowest fares available for flights on American Airlines at AA.com. On the same day of your ticket purchase on AA.com, if you find an American Airlines fare for at least $5 less for the exact same flight and itinerary on another website, American will refund the difference and give you a $50 travel voucher. Visit www.aa.com/guarantee for more details about our Lowest Fare Guarantee.

And, don't forget to check out our new fare search tool and enhanced features on AA.com that will give you more options to find the lowest fares easily. You'll pay no online booking fee and earn up to 1,000 AAdvantage® bonus miles* every time you purchase a ticket on AA.com.

Book your low fare now!




AA.com Lowest Fare Guarantee Terms and Conditions:
If a lower airfare of $5 or greater is found on another travel web site for the exact same AA flight(s), itinerary, date(s), cabin, class of service, and fare rules and restrictions, the full difference in the fares will be refunded to the credit card used for the original purchase on AA.com. In addition, AA will issue a voucher in the amount of $50, redeemable for a future American Airlines purchase. The voucher would be valid one year from date of issue and all terms and conditions listed on the voucher apply to usage. The guarantee applies to tickets purchased using a valid credit card with a United States billing address and on itineraries wholly operated by American Airlines, American Eagle and American Connection® carriers. The claim must be submitted by midnight Central Time of the same day you purchased your ticket on AA.com. The claim submittal web form is available at AA.com in the Contact AA tab on the AA.com Web Services link. The Lowest Fare Guarantee does not apply to unpublished fares that are not available to the general public and fares that cannot be purchased on AA.com. AA reserves the right to modify or cancel the AA.com Lowest Fare Guarantee at any time without prior notice. If the AA.com Lowest Fare Guarantee is cancelled for any reason, the vouchers issued will continue to be valid until their expiration date. Visit www.aa.com/guarantee for details.

* AA.com 1,000-Mile Booking Bonus: Earn up to 1,000 AAdvantage bonus miles for every round-trip ticket booked on AA.com. Bonus offer is valid for round-trip travel on American Airlines, American Eagle or AmericanConnection. Bonus miles do not count toward elite-status qualification. Bonus miles will be credited to the account of the person traveling within 3-4 weeks after flight activity is posted to the traveler's AAdvantage account. No registration is required. American reserves the right to change or discontinue bonus offers at any time.

As a loyal AA flyer (and so-called elite AAdvantage member) this is one more instance of them pushing me toward the dark side. First they whack a big co-pay on overseas upgrades, then they announce that the extra legroom that drew me and thousands (millions?) of others to use AA as our default choice in coach travel is going away, then they turn the west coast into some sort of provincial backwater where you get to fly to Chicago or Dallas or.... Dallas if you want to go anywhere...

Now this. Read the fine print - the very very very fine print. The lower priced seat has to be in the exact same booking class as the one offered on AA.com. That doesn't mean just "coach" - it means the QX#X## code buried on the "fare rules" screens - the different booking classes that can result in you paying $250 for a seat next to someone who paid $199 and another person who paid $379, both of whom are also riding in coach, reserved on the same day, etc.

So you find a cheap fare on Orbitz, book it, go to AA.com and find it's $10 more on AA, try for the "guarantee," and are told no, your fare is in O class and the AA.com fare is in Q. Oranges and Tangelos. Sorry, Charlie.

The vast majority of leisure travelers will look at that ad and assume there's no point in going anywhere but AA.com because, hey, the lowest fare is guaranteed. Devils and details. It's all part of "revenue enhancement," and sure, the airlines are in the deep kimchee and we all know it. Raise prices and live with it, AA - if you're being undercut by someone with a better product, then deal with the root causes, don't resort to deception. I want to buy a plane ticket, not a mattress that's marked down because it's covered in "last year's fabric."

With AA losing so much money that they're taking the pillows out of their planes, do you honestly think they're going to go around handing out $50 bills to everyone who catches them on this? Remember, this is an airline run by accountants.

I agree with gardyloo.

This is a guarantee of nothing.

Practically, though, it's rare for me to find a fare on Orbitz that's cheaper than the airlines' own websites. In fact, I don't recall this has ever happened.

When the fares are lower, it's usually because Orbitz pulls up some flight combinations that are not available on the airlines' websites (like a different code share, or something).

But if you just price NYC/LHR/NYC, Orbitz is usually 10 dollars more expensive than AA.

So in my opinion the guarantee is actually stating the obvious.

I'm sorry -- not a different codeshare -- but Orbitz may pair airline A with B in a connection, but if you go to airline A's website, this combination doesn't show.

I could care less about any guarantee from AA. They are the poorest and rudest airline out there as far as I am concerned. I have advantage miles earned and so am flying AA to UK this spring. But boy oh boy they sure didn't me to use them. I have 20,000 and was going to pay for the rest of the ticket. Three(!!!) different AA "customer service" people told me I couldn't do it, which of course I can---and eventually did.

I agree that the fine print makes the "guarantee" almost usless, and I am very unhappy that they discontinued more legroom in coach.

But I have found their customer service to be the best of the airlines I have flown in recent years.

Keith

This reminds me of the sort of ad I hear a lot on the radio.
A local Chain of mattress stores advertises that 'if you find the same mattress in another store and we can't match the price, we'll GIVE YOU $1000!!!!"

First of all, mattresses vary by code number and such depending on the store the manufacturer sells to, so the
'beautysleep' mattress you find in Macy's may technically not be the same mattress as the 'sleepbeauty' mattress found in Chainstore--it has a different name. Besides that, obviously if you told Chainstore that Macy's is selling the mattress for $50 less, Chainstore will just drop their price by $50 rather than give you $1000.

Sounds like AA's lawyers went to the same disclaimer school as the mattress store lawyers.

I am in absolute agreement with Gardyloo on this.

Virtually all my flying is international. There is no way I am going to pay $500 RT on top of my ticket and 50,000 miles to upgrade. With the demise of MRTC, there is no incentive whatsoever for me to remain a loyal AA flyer. Strictly price and schedule (and BA's WT+ is looking like a very attractive alternative).

As a postscript to my rant, I'll mention that a couple of stout hearted AAers have said on the AA board at flyertalk.com that they have called AA out on a couple of instances and have been told they'll get the $50 coupon. Took sweat and diligence on their part. Has to be the same first-letter code (Q,N, etc.) to work, same flight, etc.

"Hello, Dallas? We have a problem..."

A question for Adamsparks:
How did you convince AA to let you buy the balance of your ticket? I think I have spoken with the 3 representatives you talked to.
Also, has anyone had problems with AA changing your seating assignments without any notification?

kbrenan, I had kept a written accounting of what an AA person had told me several months ago along with the exact dollar amount it was going to cost. Those three representatives then said "oh, that is not using your AA miles and paying for the difference, but (some other phrase).Frankly I think it is a scam to keep people from doing this. All three were so abrasively aggessive.

As to seat changes without notification---yes! Six of us went to Ireland last year, and five had their seats changed without prior notification.

Another reason it's worthless -- you'd have to find exactly the same itinerary. The most expensive routes involve 2nd-tier airports, from which you have to connect at somebody's hub. There are few duplications of routes between those airports and the hubs that AA shares with anyone.

Regardless of whether it's worthless or not, it just doesn't interest me that much, anyway. I often use other web sites to compare between airlines and routes, etc., and sometimes "reward" them by booking with them as I feel I have used their tools in some way. Sometimes I don't, and book directly on the airlines' web site once I decide what ticket I want.

However, this whole guarantee seems pretty pathetic to me, anyway -- the fact that an airline thinks they have to make a big deal and guarantee that their own web site has the lowest fare for a particular ticket is amazing and just makes them look suspicious to me.