BACKGROUND
I purchased a ticket to Brazil using American Airlines. Their website, WWW.AA.COM, promises the lowest prices for American ticket prices. I found this promise to not be true, and after spending a lot of time on the telephone, neither would American Airlines or WWW.AA.COM would sell me a ticket at the lower price found at WWW.EXPEDIA.COM. I ended up purchasing my ticket at Expedia.
I will explain my experience in this blog post.
MY WWW.AA.COM “LOWEST GUARANTEED PRICES” EXPERIENCE
The lowest COST for American Airlines tickets IS GUARANTEED on their website. The guarantee as posted on the WWW.AA.COM site on 12 July 2015 is shown below:
I checked the WWW.AA.COM price for the itinerary I wanted, and checked both WWWLEXPEDIA.COM and WWW.CHEAPOAIR.COM. I found the lowest price on EXPEDIA, I was puzzled WHY another site have a lower price than AA.COM. Check this link for the WWW.AA.COM for the “Los Price Guarantee.”
I will now explain the ticket prices I found, and where and why I made the purchase.
QUOTED WWW.AA.COM TICKET PRICE NOT THE LOWEST
My trip is one that is called a “Muti-City” trip. This means that I am not doing the ordinary “Round Trip.” I will be flying to Rio de Janeiro and returning from Sao Paulo. I will be leaving and returning from the Ronald Reagan National Airport just outside of Washington, DC. The quoted price for my WWW.AA.COM $984.84.
After viewing this price, I checked both WWW.EXPEDIA.COM and WWW.CHEAPOAIR.COM.
LOWEST PRICED TICKET PURCHASED THROUGH WWW.EXPEDIA.COM
Expedia provided the lowest airfare for my trip. The quoted Expedia price was $909.84. I was very happy to find an airfare $75.00 lower, but I was still confused why I could not find this price on AA.COM.
It costs American Airlines money to not honor their “LOWEST GUARANTEED PRICES” promise. Letting Expedia sell the same ticket at a lower price than AA.COM costs them $75.00 plus the fees America Airlines had to pay.
WHO NEEDS AMERICAN AIRLINES REPRESENTATIVES or WWW.AA.CO WHEM DO NOT HELP YOU
I like to fly American Airlines, and before completing the purchase on Expedia, I tried to get American Airlines to match the price. I called American Reservations, and the individual answering my call tried to make some excuse about not being able match the Expedia price, and tried to switch me to AA.COM. I had to wait about 10 minutes for AA.COM to answer. The individual that answered at AA.COM, did not know what to do about my request for the price match, and the “Lowest Guaranteed Price.”
AMEROCAN AIRLINES WWW.AA.COM AIRFARE PRICING CREDITABILITY
- AA does not honor the “LOWEST GUARANTEED PRICES” promise shown on their WWW.AA.COM website,
- AA loses creditability with their own customers by not implementing a “LOWEST GUARANTEED PRICES” strategy,
- AA loses money by having Expedia sell tickets at a lower price than AA.COM, and
- AA advertising policies are at best INCONSISTENT, and borders on “BEING MISREPRESENTATIVE!”
