We were treated to the Admiral’s Club via American Airlines ( You can view that video here: https://travelingwiththecostas.com/admirals-club-barcelona)because of a cancelled flight (unfortunately synonymous with American Airlines). I’ve never been a huge fan of American due to the many flight changes and cancelled flights that see common practice. This trip offered no reason for me to rethink this opinion.
Sean and I booked a trip to Europe and after lengthy discussion we decided to fly with American. Like you, and many of my clients, flight decisions are often not based on loyalty to one airline or another but price, flight times and layovers. In this instance we chose to fly American because of the “one-stop” each way and the layover times offered.
Additionally, because these flights were long I upgraded (ever so slightly) from Economy/Main to Premium Economy. Premium Economy offers you complimentary checked bags, free drinks, an upgraded meal, more leg room and more amenities. It was about $800 in total for each of us for round trip flights.
Our outbound flight was great and seamless. Honestly I was very pleased with the upgrade we paid for, the food was decent and the flight attendants were great. Our return trip, however, was a different story.
On the morning of our departure we were notified via text that our flight was CANCELLED. This notification came 3 hours prior to our scheduled departure. We were already in the process of disembarking our ship. I could not get through to Customer Service, we did not have WiFi at the time and our only option was to head to the airport to see what options were available.
We arrived at the airport and the agent would not help us. We were told that we needed to contact customer service and that was all he could offer. I asked for his help with “accommodations” for a hotel and at that point he got a Manager. The Manager apologized, got us on a flight out that day and to show their appreciation of our patience in this matter upgraded our flights from Barcelona to New York to Business Class and Phoenix to Boise to First Class. We were not excited about having “two-stops” but at this point just wanted to get home. And, yes, very thankful for the upgrade.
Because we were flying Business Class out of Barcelona we were treated to the Admiral’s Club which was amazing (check out the video here: https://travelingwiththecostas.com/admirals-club-barcelona). We had about five hours to spend there and then headed to our gate. During the boarding process (we were Group 1 for Business Class), they called our names over the loud speaker to inform us that our seats had been changed to Economy because “the Customer Service Agent had no right to make that upgrade”. I was not pleased! I asked to at least to get the same category that we had originally paid to upgrade to and he said nothing was available. I continued to challenge him on this and all I got was a hand in my face and “I don’t care”. Again, we just wanted to get home and boarded the plane, straight back to Economy we went. Even though I had these tickets in hand.
Our first flight was 10 hours and that gave us time to stretch our legs and check out the plane. Not only were there seats available in First Class, but also in Business Class AND Premium Economy (which was what we upgraded to and asked for). The Gate Agent could have honored what Customer Service offered us and certainly could have let us sit in the Premium Economy we paid for at the time our original tickets were booked.
Needless to say we will never fly this airline again. Shame on you American Airlines for the handling (or mis-handling) of this situation.