Paying with Aust credit card on AA.com possible in 'near future'

[openseat]

Now I am willing to take a chance on these potential problems of extra fees as highlighted by Dave.

I have just had the experience of putting three reservations on hold on aa.com on Friday. I rang the call centre and paid for them. Only one the reservations showed up ticketed on Saturday. I rang back they said they would fix the other two. But after 24 hours no go and the two reservations became cancelled. I rang AA in the US, but they couldn't help me.

Now I get onto aa.com (after it was down earlier today) and find that even the ticketed reservation is cancelled. I am not sure if they put in the wrong credit card number or what (as nothing is showing up on my credit card statement on the net).

It is so frustrating!!:evil:

 

[simongr]

U.S. fliers may face separate jet-fuel fees - USATODAY.com

Interesting article though - it shows a completely different style of fuel fines - ones that are due on the date of travel such was the volatility of the fuel surcharges - I guessed linked to the lack of fuel price hedging by US airlines...

 

[openseat]

It has been a bizzare day watching my bookings come and go all day on aa.com. At one stage they all had missing legs, at other stages cities appeared that weren't even on the original bookings, but finally it seems to have returned to normality with Ticketed - Jan 14 appearing next to the reservations.

I guess I should be more patient next time. Thankfully I didn't ring AA today because I thought I would lose my temper.

I should add that the itineraries have all been given ticket numbers now, verified by the Lan.com portal.

 

[NYCguy]

It has been a bizzare day watching my bookings come and go all day on aa.com. At one stage they all had missing legs, at other stages cities appeared that weren't even on the original bookings, but finally it seems to have returned to normality with Ticketed - Jan 14 appearing next to the reservations.

Yeah, it's not only aa.com - ual.com does weird things in "my itineraries" all the time.

 

[hippo]

I have been making some bookings of late on AA.com and suffering the usual Indian call centre problems, one of which was an amusing corruption of my address and for which I received an even funnier call from the AA office at Mascot as they saw the funny side of it. But more seriously they recognised the problem.
I wrote to AA using their feedback window about the problems of the current arrangements and imploring them to add Australian credit cards to the list on AA.com. I received the rather promising reply in just one hour from an employee at AA.com Web Services which included the following:

So I think we could all help the move by giving AA a gentle nudge.

Note that platinum advantage members can already use Australian billing
address credit cards through AA customer service. Just make sure you
call the US number (which from australia is dialled as 0011 1 800 843 etc)
and if they ask, remind them that it's a platinum benefit.

I've done about a dozen transactions through the US plat desk with
various Australian Amex's in the last 2 months.

I haven't bothered with the local Aus AA number (India) for the last
year as it's a complete waste of time.

 

[Mal]

I gave them a gentle nudge tonight (plus asked if they're thinking about adding in the ability to add other OneWorld FF numbers into bookings). It all counts I spose

For me, I'm not worried about a phone booking surcharge. While a surcharge disadvantages some, online booking does benefit me. Calling up AA India and spending 30 mins on a call followed by further shenanigans when filling out paperwork to be faxed back is not something I like. Fudging my address gives me Forex conversion issues (esp with refunds!) and less ability to easily change my ticket (let alone issues if AA wants to contact me pre/post flight for whatever reason).

 

[Petch]

I hate calling IndiAA, but this thread prompted me to try booking online with AA again, in the hope that Oz credit cards would be accepted.

Well it wasn't, thus started what seems to be the standard phone call saga to IndiAA, to pay for my reservation.

First thing I hate is, when the operator logs into your record locator, they give you a sky high price in USD that is nowhere near what you just organised on the AA website. At first you are taken aback, thinking they have used an exchange rate from last century to calculate the airfare in AUD, so you ask them to check. They come back to you with; yes, okay, we will honour the Internet fare.... I feel this is extremely condescending, because as far as I am concerned; I placed my itinerary on hold, have called while it was still "on hold" and all I want to do is pay for it, not get some snooty call centre operator advising me they are doing me a special deal by allowing me to pay for my airfare, at the price which I put it on hold.

Step 2, the operator then calculates the AUD version of the fare, and I check online and the fare recalculated to Aussie Dollars seems about right for that day's trading, but I am then put on hold. After a minute the operator returns and says they airfare is now AUD150 more than what I was just quoted. I ask how this extra $150 or so dollars has come about, and receive no sensible answer.

The operator advised to call the USA directly and pay in US Dollars, if I don't like their quote. So I do, twice, (after struggling to talk to the voice recognition system), only to find out - no, even the US operators (although eminently more customer service oriented than the ones in IndiAA) can't do it. So my heart sinks, as I realise I will have to call IndiAA again.

My fourth call to AA, 2nd to IndiAA, didn't manage to find anyone who was able to give me a correct price conversion, so I politely hung up.

I decided to follow the advice from AFF, and enter UK for my "country" in the very last billing screen. Every other part of my booking was Australian, the telephone country codes, everything, even the last line in my address i wrote in caps AUSTRALIA. Then I simply selected UK from the drop down list, which caused the payment amount to convert to GBP (at the correct rate for that day)... then, I pressed pay.

Shorty after that, the system updated to "purchased", about four hours after that it went to "ticketed" and I received my all important "e-ticket number" via email. (should have done that in the first place, so much easier!)

 

[JohnK]

I agree. Why would anyone want to go through an overseas call centre to pay for a simple itinerary? I made 2 bookings in July online using my Australian address and UK as payment country and no issue what so ever.

Anyway will be good to see Australian credit card accepted on AA in the near future....

 

[Dave Noble]

I have found that just setting the credit card address to be UK does the trick every time anyway , so I still find the update , if they do it, to allow AU cards a non event

I recommend always trying when booing online and only making a call if the ticket status doesn't go through the "purchased" and "ticketed - mm/dd/yy" stages

If needing to pay by phone ( other than for an ATW ticket ) an prepared to pay a phone surcharge, I recommend just calling the US if an elite member and paying USD15 or , if not an elite member, just phoning the UK and paying GBP15

I only use the AU call centre when booking AU originating ATWs or prepared to make the effort to avoid a phone fee

Dave

 

[simongr]

Why the distinction for AU originating ATWs? Can they only be done through the call centre?

 

[Dave Noble]

Why the distinction for AU originating ATWs? Can they only be done through the call centre?

ATWs cannot be booked online and , in order to get the AU price for a LLONE4, for example, it has to be issued in Australia => has to be paid for through the AU call centre

Dave

 

[Mal]

I wrote to AA using their feedback window about the problems of the current arrangements and imploring them to add Australian credit cards to the list on AA.com

I sent them an email a while ago (as commented above), and received a very lukewarm response about a day later:
"Your concerns are being looked at. However, I do not have a timeframe for implementation. We appreciate your suggestions and will keep them on file for reference."

 

[simongr]

Note that platinum advantage members can already use Australian billing
address credit cards through AA customer service. Just make sure you
call the US number (which from australia is dialled as 0011 1 800 843 etc)
and if they ask, remind them that it's a platinum benefit.

I've done about a dozen transactions through the US plat desk with
various Australian Amex's in the last 2 months.

I haven't bothered with the local Aus AA number (India) for the last
year as it's a complete waste of time.

I tried this as an EXP paying for a DONE4 and was not successful

 

[aybee]

Maybe they'll turn an aa.com.au version on when the AA call centre comes back to Australia in May.

 

[Keith009]

I tried this as an EXP paying for a DONE4 and was not successful

The US call centre managed to charge my credit card for extra taxes they had to collect on an aaward I altered.

 

[dragonman]

I agree. Why would anyone want to go through an overseas call centre to pay for a simple itinerary? I made 2 bookings in July online using my Australian address and UK as payment country and no issue what so ever.

Anyway will be good to see Australian credit card accepted on AA in the near future....

I just paid an AA DONE4 re-issue fee by calling AA in Sydney and using an Aus cc so it can be done sometimes. Of course it should be possible all the time.

 

[Dave Noble]

I just paid an AA DONE4 re-issue fee by calling AA in Sydney and using an Aus cc so it can be done sometimes. Of course it should be possible all the time.

There should never be an issue doing that

Dave

 

[leuraflyer]

I have learned a great deal from this community and hope that the following will be a worthwhile contribution.

I am looking at booking a trip from SYD to LHR via HNL and SFO on AA in Y and doing a Platinum Challenge on the way. Following the comments about the problems of making a credit card booking with AA I did the following experiment to compare costs, using the first segment SYD-HNL for simplicity.

SYD-HNL on 07/05/2008, return on 01/06/2008 on AA codeshare on QF metal, outbound in L, return in M, showed USD 1,806.00 on AA website.

Same flights searched on ITA site showed USD 1,806.00 when set to BOS as home city and AUD 1,922.00 when set to SYD as home city. This indicated an exchange rate of 93.96 AUD/USD, which is about right for today.

I then looked at Expedia and Webjet and found the same flights for about AUD 1,922.00 plus their booking fees. Both sites appear to be able to take an Aussie Credit Card without problems. I also checked whether either site would allow booking of US domestic flights on AA. Expedia seemed to allow this, Webjet did not.

As there seems to be no significant cost difference and the problem of dealing with IndiAA or the currency conversion fees using the UK workaround would be avoided, are there any other reasons not to use one of the above (or other) booking sites to book on AA?

 

[Mal]

As there seems to be no significant cost difference and the problem of dealing with IndiAA or the currency conversion fees using the UK workaround would be avoided, are there any other reasons not to use one of the above (or other) booking sites to book on AA?

Welcome to AFF

Booking with third parties (ie Expedia/Webjet) works out well in most cases. However, there are a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, there may be web booking bonuses with AA (or another airline) that you'll only get if booking on their website. Secondly, if you book through an agent, there may be commission that you have to pay for the tickets. Thirdly, if you need to do changes or cancellations, you'll have to normally do them through the agent rather than AA, which may mean dealing with their call centre and they may charge you a fee for changes/cancellations over what AA will charge. Lastly, if you are looking to use points /vouchers to upgrade on AA, then you need to have the itinerary ticketed on AA "ticket stock". Some other websites may use "Qantas stock" or other airlines to ticket the itinerary.

 

[Dave Noble]

Personally I would recommend booking the reservation on the AA site and holding the reservation rather than purchasing it; then phone the UK and pay for it.

Nicely avoids AA india but has the benefit of having booked through AA in that if you need to make changes etc , you can just call the airline

Dave