Does anyone here have the latest info. regarding how American Airlines works with award travel? It looks like you can cancel with no fees, but I’m not sure, and I don’t want to try it and find out.
Our trip is in February if that matters at all. I’ve called AA, but the wait is over 4 hours.
Thanks in advance
I don’t know the rules on award travel, but I do know that you can pick an option to have AA call you back in about X hours. I’ve utilized that successfully several times so that I can go about my day and await the return call.
Yes, you can cancel award travel with no fees, even just before your flight. There’s no need to call them. Your miles will be immediately redeposited and any taxes you paid will be refunded in your original form of payment.
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They missed the flight. Decided to heck with it…and moved the whole thing out a few months. Just not worth the struggle. Two of the three tests came back by the end of yesterday, one is still pending.
That stinks.
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Thanks for the reply. I did the call back, and it will be this afternoon. BUT, it’s possible the award travel I want may change between now and then.
What happens if the passenger’s flight is delayed so that it is more than 24 hours after the test or if the passenger’s flight is cancelled and he/she is shifted to another later flight? Is additional testing required?
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My test result from Mexico didn’t have a time stamp on it. It just had the date. They said it was good for any flight next day.
The US guidelines used to count days, not hours. When my husband traveled to England, 3 days could have mean 3 days and several hours.
@shawbridge - read the rules carefully; it will be clearly spelled out. For instance, for Hawaii, it used to mean sample collections must have taken within 72 hours of the departure time of the last leg of your HI travel that links the islands with the mainland. If the flight is officially delayed for less than a day, the test collection time would still be based on the original departure time.
I came back from Mexico right before Christmas and it was with AA.
Just confirming what 1NJParent said. I spoke with AA and they confirmed both the fare and taxes would be “refunded” (miles/cash). If I paid for special seats, that part would NOT be refunded.
The policy that matters is the policy which existed when you purchased your tix, even if it changes. So for example, I can buy tix now for September, and they will be refundable, even if AA changes the policy.
Bad news for me is by the time I found out for sure, the fare had gone up in point value and there were not any good seats left.
For the benefits of other readers, all major US-based carriers have made award tickets (domestic non-basic economy tickets as well as international tickets originating from the US) cancellable since last year. The changes are supposed to be “permanent”. There’re some differences between different airlines. United award tickets, for example, must be cancelled 30+ days in advance to avoid fees. Some airlines (e.g. JetBlue, Southwest) will only refund taxes paid in the form of a “credit” that will expire after a period of time.
United gave us only vouchers to be used within two years. This was for a flight we cancelled in July 2020 because the wedding we were going to was canceled due to Covid. United flatly refused to refund, and we asked multiple times.
We just used the vouchers to go to Phoenix in March. Tickets are pricey at that time of the year and the vouchers covered our ticket costs.
My thoughts about travel right now…I am very willing to travel domestically. But right now, I’m just not willing to travel out of the country.
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Southwest will refund taxes to the credit card used for payment. So flights booked with southwest reward points are fully refundable.
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They didn’t do that before, maybe they changed recently?
I have always gotten my taxes back on my credit card with Southwest. It usually defaults to a SW credit. You have to choose credit card. I’ve done it many times.
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I just got off the phone with D1. I think we are going to Italy for 2 weeks in July. We are renting a villa outside of Rome. I may spend few days in Florence by myself before I join them.
Fingers crossed things will be better by then.
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Delta has been pretty reasonable with giving credits and/or refunds, or putting credits used for travel back in one’s account if the passenger cancels their trip. The only difference is that if a ticket for a family member was paid for with a free companion ticket that comes as a benefit with some of the delta amex credit cards, those are not cancellable.refundable/reissue-able.
I’m in Kauai now, going home today after 7 days. Completely agree with pp. We hiked, went for a run, sat by the beach, mostly ate outside. We are all vaxed and boosted, also tested negative before traveling.
We also made sure the flight was direct.
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Just to add an update, all of us have tested negative on RATs. Day 3 and Day 5 post-travel day. No symptoms either. We were very fortunate with avoiding flight cancelations too, all we had was a 2 hour delay at our layover. If our trip were just two weeks later (i.e. leaving 1/2/21) I don’t think we would have gone, the current situation is beyond my comfort zone.