Is it possible to complain directly to One World Alliance?

thatcambridgebird

One World Alliance are the overarching partnership of a whole load of international air carriers - BA, American Airlines etc. I picked those two airlines as I have had to seek refunds from both due to unexpected pregnancy. BA have been amazing and refunded everything, including the fares for other passengers coming with us on a separate booking.

American, however, keep sending me the same automated message advising me I can still travel any time up to April 2017 (when I will have a 2 month old!). I would like to escalate and even tried social media but they're ignoring my requests for the correct contacts.

Has anyone here tried to contact the One World Alliance team directly, or does anyone have any better knowledge of contacting AA? All I would like is a refund; I have given them a Dr's note explaining I am now unfit to fly and as the flights are in January, there's plenty of time to re-sell on their part.

Any guidance from MSE-ers who might've had experience with this airline or partner company would be great! And if any other info is needed, let me know. I didn't want to go into a huge diatribe here!

richardw

No point, they are just interested in marketing their member airlines.
Your complaint is with AA, have you tried the ceomail website?

littlereddevil

A lot of flights are non-refundable. You can claim off your insurance though ( or try ) as I not sure they all cover pregnancy.

agrinnall

There may be plenty of time for AA to resell, but if the tickets are non-refundable then they have no reason to do so as they already have your money for them. What fare class are the tickets?

Travel insurance, if it covers pregnancy, is your best bet. I'm rather surprised that BA have paid out.

malkie76

Boring point, but all non-LCC carriers oversell, hence your seat has probably already been sold on the expectation that several customers don't turn up, or can't fly.

I'm surprised BA let you cancel unless you had expensive refundable tickets. Good on them.

Otherwise contact your travel insurance to understand if they cover "surprise" pregnancies.

Archergirl

I would also have thought your travel ins is the way to go (you do have it, don't you....)

thatcambridgebird

Cool, thanks everyone, I've raised one final query with AA but it looks like they're digging their heels in.

Stupidly - absolutely stupidly, I know - I hadn't sorted insurance at the time of booking. As I booked in April for flights in January, I thought "plenty of time, I'll do that later!" and promptly didn't, then fell pregnant. I know, I know, I am good with insurance otherwise!!

Anyway, yes, BA have been absolutely amazing and have brilliant customer service. Clearly I don't recommend doing what I did - get insurance!!! - but they were fab enough to even refund our relatives tickets on a separate booking, once I'd provided a Dr's note and they understood it was for a 40th birthday trip we were all meant to be taking together.


I think this one, in terms of AA, is chalked up to Live and Learn, unfortunately. Thanks for the advice, though :beer:

PeacefulWaters

thatcambridgebird wrote: »

Cool, thanks everyone, I've raised one final query with AA but it looks like they're digging their heels in.

Stupidly - absolutely stupidly, I know - I hadn't sorted insurance at the time of booking. As I booked in April for flights in January, I thought "plenty of time, I'll do that later!" and promptly didn't, then fell pregnant. I know, I know, I am good with insurance otherwise!!

Anyway, yes, BA have been absolutely amazing and have brilliant customer service. Clearly I don't recommend doing what I did - get insurance!!! - but they were fab enough to even refund our relatives tickets on a separate booking, once I'd provided a Dr's note and they understood it was for a 40th birthday trip we were all meant to be taking together.


I think this one, in terms of AA, is chalked up to Live and Learn, unfortunately. Thanks for the advice, though :beer:

Words rarely ever spoken in bold!

thatcambridgebird

A quick update to this, in case anyone's ever in a similar situation. I hope it's ok to unearth the thread but further progress was made.

I raised a case through MSE's own Resolver site with American Airlines, not really expecting it to come to much given that AA are an american company after all! However, they were actually much more communicative and I was put in touch with proper customer service people rather than what appeared to be automated processes.

Anyway, after a re-review of my case, they decided to offer a refund after all, based on the Drs note etc, which has been processed and hit my bank today.

As I said earlier - this is still a big lesson learned for me in terms of having the appropriate travel insurance from Day 1, which would have made all claims much easier and smoother. It's all worked out ok for me in the end and I now have all of my money back (to spend on baby things!). However, we're off on a short european break soon and the very first thing I did was arrange insurance! I will not be travelling...or planning to travel! ... without it from now on.

jackieblack

That's a great result, but you were exceptionally lucky to get anything back from either airline.

thatcambridgebird

jackieblack wrote: »

That's a great result, but you were exceptionally lucky to get anything back from either airline.

Yes, and I never said anything but. I fully accept I was silly not to arrange travel insurance immediately, so I am pretty happy with what could otherwise have been an extremely expensive loss.

I don't mean to sound irritable, but I've been honest in this thread and agree with other posters who've said it's a better-than-expected result. I updated the thread with a bit of info in case it helps other travellers rather than to acknowledge - again - what I've already acknowledged a number of times.