Shame on you American Airlines! You have ruined my parents 50th anniversary cruise by losing 11 family members luggage, and then lied to us several times on its whereabouts. For starters when we arrived in Ft Lauderdale on 5/30 they blamed US for leaving the carousel too early. We watched the same 4 bags go by 4 times and the carousel stopped. Ran to the baggage claim office and grabbed the information packet with the 800 number on it. By this time we were late getting on the boat because the last flight we were on from DFW to FLL got delayed, not because of storms but because there was no Auxiliary Power Unit available and the paperwork was not complete and the lavatories were not pumped out. We get to the boat with minutes to spare and go straight to the ships customer service who promptly gets on the phone to AA baggage services and we are told that they can not get to Nassau by the next day. Not sure why not considering this is the age of jet travel and it is a 40 minute flight by turboprop. We, and when I say we, I mean all 11 of our family are then told that it will go to St. Thomas 3 days later on 6/2. Not the end of the world just a major inconvenience at this point. On the day at sea after leaving Nassau we call baggage services from the ship and confirm that the bags will be at St. Thomas waiting for us and a ships concierge will retrieve them. We arrive back at the boat from St. Thomas the next day and customer service tells us that only my sister, her daughter and husbands bags were shipped. This made my family furious!!! WE WERE LIED TO BY YOUR COMPANY! We called baggage services again and were then told that it would be in St. Maarten the next day 6/3. We arrive in St. Maarten to celebrate our parents 50th anniversary. We get back to the boat and are told by ships customer service that there were no bags at SXM. LIED TO AGAIN BY YOUR COMPANY!! The boat had to depart and go back to Port Everglades. We call baggage services and speak to Denise in the Raleigh office and she states that the bags are located in the FLL baggage claim office. We arrive back and get to the FLL baggage office and your employee Dagmar locates everyone's bags except for my two bags. My bags are not there! AGAIN, WE WERE LIED TO!! She tells us that they sent the bags to SXM on 6/5 (2 days after we left) and when the ship was not there they sent them to MIA. Dagmar then calls MIA office and they confirm that the bags are there and will be put on the next flight to Austin. She sent a message to MIA baggage claim at 8:54AM to reinforce the urgency. She confirmed with us that the bags will be in AUS by the time that we arrive from our connecting flight at DFW. We arrive in DFW and I call the FLL baggage office and speak to Leo and tell him the situation. By this time I have been wearing the same underwear and socks for the past 8 days. GROSS!! Leo chuckles and states "sucks to be you!" These are his exact words. He says he does not have the bags which I already knew. I just wanted to see what flight my bags were going to be on from MIA to AUS. He says he will put me on hold to find out but instead of putting me on hold he hangs up on me. I then call the 800 number and speak to Sheron. By this time it is approximately 5:30 and her computer shows that the bags are still in MIA. She was very pleasant and put me on hold to call MIA baggage office. She gets back on the phone and told me that MIA told her that they don't have the bags and they hung up on her. AGAIN WE WERE LIED TO!! We had to board the aircraft to fly to AUS and figured we would deal with it there. Once there I speak to the two AA reps at the AUS baggage office, he told me his screen shows that one bag is still in Miami and the other got scanned in Santa Monica SMO. What the hell is my bag doing in California and how did it get across the country in 1 hour? We get back home and call the 800 number again and speak to Malika in Raleigh and she tells us that both bags are still in SXM! AGAIN WE WERE LIED TO!! Give me my bags! AA has ruined a family vacation! The kids did not have swimsuits or life-jackets which are in the bags and none are for sale on the boat. Every time we walked around the pool deck and my kids wanted to go swimming we had to tell them that we couldn't and had to listen to them cry. We did manage to borrow a kids swimsuit so that my son could have at least a couple of hours in the pool. Thank God for the kindness of people and this small gesture is more than anything that AA has done....and we paid you!!! read more

Never fly American Airlines. Absolutely, the worst customer service of any airline. Recently, I had to fly from Newark to Chicago. I wanted to fly with Southwest airlines as I almost always do. Unfortunately, my wife forced me to purchase a ticket on American due to having old miles that were about to expire. I told her it wouldn't be worth the aggravation, but finally relented. I booked a flight for 4:30 PM. Two weeks after my booking, I was annoyed to receive an email from American saying that my flight time was pushed back to 6:45 PM, which was a very inconvenient change. If you sell a ticket for a certain time, maybe you should stick with that time? Not so with American. I knew from past experience that being on such a late flight with American would also mean a good chance that they would cancel it. But onward with hope. Day of the flight, about an hour or two before I had to leave for the airport, I get the dreaded automated call from American that my flight was delayed. Ten minutes later, drumroll, no surprise, I get a call again saying that my flight was canceled. Eyes roll up in my head. Not to worry, tells me an agent on the phone, we have you rebooked for tomorrow at noon. Get to Newark the next day in plenty of time to make the noon flight. Put my card in the self check in machine. Woops, it can't find my itinerary. Wait it line to speak with an agent. Get to the agent and she tells me coldly that I'm not on the flight, the flight is full, and the best she can do is put me on standby. Ok, I say, I'd like to speak to your manager. She responds coldly again, "well that's going to be a while sir..." Continue to argue and she threatens to call security. I wait and wait, and demand again to speak to a manager. Finally, I'm told that the manager is at the gate, and the only way I can speak to her is to proceed through security to the gate. I am getting desperate and thinking of purchasing a ticket on United for $1000 rather than continue with this AA clown show but decided the wife would be upset so I wait an hour to get through security and talk to a manager. Get to the gate, and lo and behold there is no manager there. I am told to sit and wait again. Finally, 20 or 30 minutes later a manager shows up. She tells me in no uncertain terms that all of the flights for the day to Chicago are full and the best she can do is put me on a flight the next day (2 days after my original flight was scheduled). I say that is ridiculous, can't you even reroute me through another city? NO. I say: you need to offer a voucher to get another customer off the flight. "Sorry, I've already offered more than I'm allowed." I say can I please hear you on the loudspeaker making the offer. She refuses. She threatens to call security if I continue to argue. I say I'm going to sue your company for breach of contract. She says go ahead. I return to the ticketing area. By this time the $1000 ticket on United has already been sold. I go back one last time to the American counter in desperation, and magically, this time there is a supervisor "right behind the door" that I can talk to. She spends a minute or two on the computer and books me straightaway for a flight later in the day on Delta airlines at LaGuardia (have to take a 1.5 hour transportation service to get there). p.s. I was thinking of emailing this complaint to the American Airlines customer service through their website. Unfortunately, they have a character limit on comments of 1500 characters and it couldn't fit. Just another confirmation of how little they care to hear from their customers/potential customers. Ariel G. read more

On 9/23/19 My wife and I had a flight to Mobile al.departing at 8pm. It was cancelled with no reason given. I was sent an email and text at 6:29pm that we were being rerouted to Mobile thru Dallas Tx on a flight that left at 5:58 thirty minutes before we received the Text. We were given a hotel voucher for the night and (1) one $12 meal voucher each for (3) Three meals Dinner on 9/23 and Breakfast and Lunch on 9/24 as our new flight was at 1250 on 9/24. We could not eat off of Mc'donalds dollar menu for that. Dinner on 9/23 was 49.78 plus tip. Our Breakfast was 18.56 plus tip Lunch. Our lunch at the airport was 34.98 plus tip. No alcohol was consumed as we are not consumers of alcohol. I also have to pay an additional parking day at Mobile $10. We had 3 tickets to a Paw Patrol concert in Mobile to take our grandson $ 67 each. It took place at 10am the time we were still in Charlotte waiting for our 12:50 pm rescheduled flight. The real issue is trying to explain to a 3-year-old he did not get to see Paw Patrol a show he had been anxiously awaiting because a company has to pay their CEO 12 million dollar a year and some bean counter figured out a way to save a few dollars at the inconvenience a few passengers. My wife is handicapped and had to go thru TSA check again. The extra time standing is very hard on her as she has had back and knee surgery. She also suffers from mental health issue anxiety related and her medicine was on our checked bags as she only had enough on her carry on for the day. There were 2 earlier flights that we were not given an opportunity to book that because I had booked this flight with points which obviously affected the rebooking options. It should be noted that the points used were from being a loyal American Airline customer in the past. I must emphasize from the past as I will only fly American as a last resort in the future. When we arrived at Mobile a day late our luggage was not on the plane. The counter clerk in Mobile was a poorly trained employee that could not determine where our bags were. She provided a 1 800 # and we reported our bags delayed/lost. After I call the number provide it was determined our bags were in the Mobile airport. We were told they would be delivered after 6:30 pm as that was the last delivery run of the day. The next Day Wednesday 9/25 I again called about our bags. I was told they were in Mobile airport and they would call when the lost baggage office opened. There is not a lost baggage office for AA in the airport only Delta has an office to address lost baggage on site. The personal at the ticket counter handle lost bag status as there are employees there at 5:30 am to handle the 4 flights that leave before 10am. I guess multitasking is not a skill required of your employees. Again, I was told my bags would be delivered that day. At 5:30 pm I called again praying my bags would make the 6:30 run but they did not. My bags were finally delivered at 11am CST after calling again Thursday morning. I first tried to file a complaint thru your website. The first attempt I was timed out as I was composing the complaint. I logged on again and this time there was a character limit on your complaint. I am very disappointed that we were used to increase your corporate profits as plane was probably cancelled due to not enough ticket sold to maximize your profit. Just glad everything goes good for your 12 million Dollar CEO. Total additional cost to us a senior citizen living on a fixed income is $290.32. Have a blessed day. Best Regards John Lilley read more

I purchased 3 tickets for my two sons and myself from Los Angeles to Guatemala City with a connection flight in Miami. I had to cancel one of my son's ticket due to school related. I called American Airlines and I was given an electronic credit to use within 1 year which I was not too happy because I was hoping to get a refund. ALL of our flights were delayed, departure and return. For our return flight from Miami to Los Angeles, we only had 1 hour to go through immigration, grab our bags and check in again. Our boarding time was at 8:27pm, we arrived to check in at 9:00pm. The agent told us that we were late and he couldn't get us on that flight because it was already gone and plus it was "full." Full? Haven't I already paid for OUR tickets? And then, he refused to pay for my hotel stay and put us on another flight the next morning. On our way to the hotel, I received a notification saying that the flight that night was delayed and would be departing at 9:58pm now because there was another flight coming in that was delayed which was not our flight. Well, it looks like someone was lying and sold our tickets to someone on that flight. These people are not being honest with us customers and it is unacceptable. I could had made it on that flight, but these people resold our tickets to make more money. This is all they care about, making money. I was hesitant, at first, to use this airline because I had heard horrible things about it but I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and I ended up paying a big price. Then, I remembered they did it to me back in 2008 when I was pregnant with my son I was with this time and my other son was 2 years old at that time. They left us in Mexico City at that time because again the flight was delayed. And refused to pay for the hotel and I lost my money on my connection flight so I had to purchase a new ticket with another airline. It's a shame. I filed a complaint with BBB and it was useless. As always, big airlines win and get to keep our money. They can shove my son's ticket and my hotel stay money up their ass. I'm DONE! read more

I've worked customer service for 15 years. I have never been so angry about the poorest customer service in my life. American Airlines updated my brother's flight almost 2 hours early. I booked the flight 2 months ago in August. My notification was only a few hours before. Then, they held him up for about 35 min. between check-in & security. One baggage claim person wasn't helpful, so I demanded a supervisor checking my brother's 1 bag in. The supervisor looked at me and above or pass me to ignore me thinking I didn't catch that rudeness. She tries to help, but at this point, we've missed boarding. I spoke to 2 more supervisors at the airport. They told me to contact priceline with my booking about the flight change. Priceline told me to contact American Airlines. Then, the last supervisor,over the phone, Gail Williams, tells me to talk to a supervisor at the airport. She clearly didn't hear me, "I did that already!" Saying the line is recorded. I know it's recorded. I did not curse at her. I threatened to review American Airlines on social media, and all the sites I can. I've already done 5, and I'm not going to stop. She wasn't sympathetic, she wasn't helpful and she didn't remedy the issue in any way. My brother is the sweetest guy you'll ever meet. 12 hours on standby without guarantee of a flight? Really?! He was polite to everyone he spoke to at the airlines & airport. This is the 2nd time I've had a poor experience with this airline. Everybody got me playing the telephone game. The supervisors are useless. My brother has been waiting for over 12 hours on standby. Some employees want to tell him what gate he should be at, others don't. What kind of nonsense is that? This is the worst airline I've ever dealt with. Never again!!! I will never recommend this airline to anyone. read more

My experience as a consumer purchasing AA service has been concerning. It is my understanding that American Airlines covers itself with fine print and legalities to have the ability to conduct its business in unfair and unethical manner. The average consumer usually wouldn't be able to pursue anything legal because of many factors so AA uses this as an advantage to continue its practice. I am not going to change anything with this review but I would like would-be travelers to know. I booked a flight 1 month ago with 4 seats on a 2 hour direct flight to Knoxville TN from Miami FL. Due to medical conditions and a 1 year old I do not travel longer than 2 hours on anything. Without my consent or being told of a possible change while paying it was just changed. It is now a 4 and 1/2 hour flight with a stop in another city. Why was I not told about the possibility of this while I was paying? I have had to cancel our small family vacation all together since I am not able to make AA forced new arrangement. I have lost non refundable $1,500.00 in the hotel deposit for the days of stay as well as the money paid for the flight and car rental deposit. I am 2 months away from the flight which has been canceled with NO REFUND. I have made the attempt 3 times so far to call and fix this with no hope, NO in American Airlines helps. Sounds like this stuff happens a-lot which is why AA has established its policy's to protect itself and its interest. I would love for someone to contact me to correct this experience but I do not expect it. read more

My family checked in 3 hours prior to our American Airlines flight in Miami, FL to ensure that we would have no problems. Twenty minutes prior to the flight departure, an announcement came over the loud speaker that there had been a Gate change for our flight from Gate 28 to Gate 21. We asked an American Airlines employee directions for Gate 21 and were given wrong information. We then rushed to Gate 21 and arrived 10 minutes prior to departure only to be told that we were TOO LATE! The door to the plane had not yet been closed and our seats had been given to standby and non-rev customers... When I asked American Airlines Agent, Leo (African American man with long dreadlocks) why the announcement hadn't been made in a more timely manner, he said, "It's YOUR job to check the monitors. It's NOT OUR job to BABYSIT YOU." I've never been treated so rudely by someone supposedly in the business of customer service. I strongly feel that "LEO" had non-revenue friends that he wanted to accommodate and thus the late announcement. Otherwise why bother making an announcement at all? Perhaps a lame attempt to cover his ass?? Well, heads up American Airlines...you are in a very competitive business and folks have other options. Why would ANYONE choose to fly with your company given the bullshit attitudes of these employees? Our family certainly won't be doing business with you again. read more

Traveled on a Wednesday and the first leg of my trip was delayed due to mechanical problem (that was not even repaired by the time we took off) by 4 hours causing me to miss my connecting flight. I called American Airlines to rebook my connecting flight and was told flights were full and they could get me there on Saturday (my vacation was due to end on Sunday)!! What!?!??!?! I was told I could book another flight and submit to American for reimbursement. When I looked on line-there were 5 seats available on American later that day, so I called back to inform them of that and asked if they could book me on one of the empty seats; I was DENIED and told "I cannot help you". To make a long story short, I ended up having to PURCHASE a last minute ticket ON AMERICAN for that evening for the incredibly expensive amount of $1033 dollars thinking they would reimburse me, like I was told, when I got back home---WRONG! Beware vacationers, brides, grooms, etc. American Airlines will NOT help you even if they delay was on their end. Additionally when I spoke with customer service about it later and asked what I could have done to have prevented all this, I was told "You should have just made them book you on the later flight" like that helps me whatsoever read more

The absolute WORST airlines to book a flight with. Their customer service is horrendous, they will not transfer calls to supervisor (Julie employee #V023 would not take the call) and they treat customers like they are disposable. I find it ludicrous that I spent $470 and after having to cancel my initial flight and re-book a few months later Ryan(employee #V048) rudely tells me that I can only use $235 of my credit and will not let me change my second traveler even though I paid the full amount on my credit card. I HAVE TO JUMP THROUGH LOOPS TO GET A SIMPLE REQUEST ACCOMMODATED. The request now has to be submitted online, even though I was instructed to call on the website, and wait 72 hours for it to be reviewed; it is up to their discretion whether I can use the credit. How very convenient. DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS AIRLINES, THEY JUST STEAL YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY. I can only conclude that JEFF SMISEK is aiming to run the worst possible airlines. FLY WITH ANY OTHER AIRLINES. They take your money, refuse to help, basically tell you that your out of luck and then disconnect from the call. I cant even say that I will never fly with them again since I cannot book a flight with my own credit. read more

This was, without a doubt, the worst airline experience I've ever had. I understand that weather delays and cancellations happen, but what is completely unacceptable is the way passengers were treated afterward. The lack of communication and organization was unbelievable. We were left standing for hours with little to no direction while employees gave conflicting information or simply brushed people off. It felt like no one wanted to take responsibility or help us figure out our next steps. My husband had to be back in New York for work the next morning, and we were forced to spend our own money on another flight because we couldn't get any clear answers. To make matters worse, no one could tell us where our checked luggage was or when we would get it back. Having valuables in our suitcase only made the situation even more stressful. A flight cancellation is one thing. Treating customers as if they don't matter is another. Better communication, compassion, and professionalism would have made a world of difference. Instead, we were left frustrated, exhausted, and feeling completely abandoned. After this experience, we will never choose American Airlines again. read more

Would give 0 stars if that was possible. I was flying from Detroit to Chicago, which is about an hour long flight. My flight was delayed by exactly 55 minutes. Since this was basically the entire duration of the flight, and it was actually faster for me to drive, I called and asked for a refund. Since the flight wasn't delayed by an hour, their policy is to not refund money. They might as well have delayed the flight for 59 minutes just to make it that much more blatant they were entrapping people into not getting a refund. Spoke to the customer service supervisor, she was rude, unwilling to listen and very robotic. I drove to Chicago with a friend, and my ticket for the way home was canceled, without me knowing! Very disappointed and still scratching my head as to how this company is still in business. First and last experience with this airline. Would not recommend. The difference of 5 minutes cost me $300 and the "customer service" did nothing to help, she actually suggested I purchase a different flight for $400, LOL! Worst experience of my life. Don't fly with them. read more

I'm not sure why American Airlines got such a low rating here on Yelp. It's very inexpensive flight and the process from check in online to the very end of the fight is absolutely smooth and easy. I needed to change my seats so I could seat together with my sister and the lady at the gate helped us and put as together. We had carry on luggage and we got plenty of space on top to store it while flying. Any by the way, the carry on bag is free as well as 1 personal item (my second bag was almost the same size as my carry on :))) We needed more water, sodas, cookies, and flight attendants helpfully gave it to us. There were even charging outlets for our phones under the seats. They also have a WiFi on board and we used a free promotional offer for T-Mobile customers. I don't have T-Mobile, but I still got this offer through putting my friends phone number:)) Overall great flying experience. I can't say anything negative about American Airlines. I will definitely fly with them again. Highly recommended!! read more