hamburglar

Can I use a trip or flight credit to pay for the additional cost of changing an existing reservation? Or are those only good for new reservations?

cmtlatitudes

So, my similar experiences today. Very close in I had to cancel a departure date of the 8th, but uncertain if I'd be able to leave the 9th or the 10th. I came up with the (less than) Brillant plan of using soon to expire Trip Credits to book both days. For the flight on the 9th, I had to add about $40.00 onto the $700 Trip Credit to complete the purchase. That Trip Credit was expiring Sept 30, 2023.

The 8/9 flight, I booked on 8/6, the confirmation email is timestamped received 1156pm EDT, but the ticket actually says booked 8/7. Very odd & have no idea why that happened. Because of this however, when I canceled on 8/8, the system didn't treat it as a simple Trip Credit - Reissue, but instead as a 24 refund. (Confirmed later by an agent.)

My confirmation email for the cancellation said I'd be receiving a flight credit. For the evening of 8/8, and though 6-7am this morning, the Flight Credit was showing in my account. Only at the top level with the record locator and a new expiration date that was odd and didn't correlate to a date that made sense (Nov 15, 2023). However, when I tried to access the supporting docs, with the ticket numbers and refund amounts, kept getting an "access denied" error. Then this morning, I received an email stating the $40 had been refunded to my credit card and my refund was complete. Went back and looked again in my account, and the Flight Credit had vanished.

Called an agent at that point. She told me that despite seeing the Flight Credit briefly, the $700 Trip Credit would be reissued as a Trip Credit. But that because I canceled within 24 hours, it would go to the refunds department, and would be 7-14 business days before showing up in my account. The agent advised never cancelling a Trip or Flight Credit online within 24 hours. She said if I cancelled after 24 hours, a new trip credit for $740 would have been generated immediately. Instead, the $40 went back to my credit card and the trip credit will take weeks to be refunded and reissued to my account. She advised calling and ask for the Credit to be applied to another flight that can be cancelled online later, rather than cancelling online within 24 hours. I asked if the expiration date would still be 9/30 even though I'd lose access for several weeks. She thought it would be reissued for a year later but wasn't sure. She said she couldn't call the Refunds desk to discuss, because they don't open until 9am MST.

So for anyone who's still hanging in there after this long post, I kind of screwed myself by trying to be a good guy and get the flight back into the system as soon as I knew I wouldn't take it. But the whole 24 scenario with the Flight & Trip credit was new to me. It seemed like the agent was giving me sage guidance for the future, to either wait to cancel past the 24-hour point, or if must cancel prior, call to cancel and have the credit reapplied. If you then cancel that flight after the 24-hour point online, you'll still have your Trip Credit available weeks sooner.

Oh - and post-note - I did recall later today that any time I cancel a partner award ticket, the tax payment shows up processing as a Flight Credit for 12-24 hours, and then just vanishes. That was probably the same case with the 24 hour refund briefly showing up this way, before the additional $$ were sent back to my credit card.

cmtlatitudes

I asked the agent I was speaking with this morning about this. She said that used to be the policy, that a Flight Credit was only good to reuse from the departure country of origin. However, that AA has since eased up on this restriction, and Flights Credit may now be used anywhere AA travels.

YMMV and HUCA is your friend.

At one point the agent kind of laughed and said she has to recheck things all the time because they change so often. I was actually sorry I wasn't asked to stay online and rate the service; I'd have given her high marks. She did seem fairly knowledgeable, but it's harder to know these days.

Happy

Are there more DPs on AA finally only issues Trip Credit now?

Back in June we changed a refundable place holder booked with Trip Credit of one passenger to an actual trip, and used some of the residual value to book an other passenger on the same trip but of course different PNR. At that time AA itinerary not only involved a connection while other airlines DL and B6 are direct flight, but also about $20 more expensive. However we really wanted to use up the AA credit so we booked AA.

Now DL’s direct flight still is $20 cheaper but it also has a 7.5K Main Cabin Award versus the $137 AA ticket with connected flight. I went ahead to book the DL award and would cancel the AA tickets booked as 2 PNRs. The recent DP about getting Trip Credit back on voluntary cancellation is encouraging - because Trip Credit can be used to book anyone and can be used up to 8 per itinerary.

The return direction is currently booked as a DL award but 12K Main Cabin. AA flights currently have poor time. I guess schedule would not change for Mid Oct which is not yet in Winter schedule yet? Else I can use the credit to book AA for the return and cancel the DL award.

OT, DL as bad as it’s Skypeso reputation, it does have better domestic award prices than AA on many of the 3 or below fly time flights.

ANC RED-EYE

On 9/25/22 I booked a ticket for $183; I cancelled this trip in February. I applied the $183 flight credit + $1.30 (credit card) to book a new trip on 5/25/23. It's looking like I'll need to cancel that trip as well. If I cancel that trip, a) what kind of credit will I receive, and b) what will the expiration date be?

My main question is whether the expiration/travel by date of the original $183 flight credit will be reset by having applied it to a new ticket.

js1993

Probably 9/25, per AA's rules, but it's inconsistent, perhaps by design.

rayfes

changed AUS-TPA J to a cheaper flt a few days earlier and got trip credit #1 for ~$130
canceled AUS-LIR-AUS Y because the same flts dropped by ~$200 and received trip credit #2 for ~$700
used up trip credit #1 and part of #2 to rebook the same LIR flts for $500 and had to call in to use the trip credits
agent just wanted to use trip credit #2 for the rebooking but I told her I thought it would be simpler if I only had 1 trip credit remaining after this transaction
agent thought this was odd but went ahead and used up trip credit #1 and part of trip credit #2 and issued me trip credit #3 for the remaining amount

is trip credit #3 only valid for ex-US travel? I'm not sure if these were ever flight credits as the emails I received from AA called them trip credits

(data point) related to another discussion in this thread I canceled an award ticket booked via AA but with all BA flights within 24 hours and the miles were redeposited immediately and the co-pay refunded a few days later without me having to do anything

ANC RED-EYE

Reporting back for anyone who ends up in a similar situation. I did end up canceling this ticket, and a trip credit in the full amount expiring 1 year from the date of cancellation was issued immediately (received via email).

Happy

I am confused on what kind of credit I should get.

In June we changed a fully refundale ticket for my husband at the AA Ft. Lauderdale office to a new itinerary traveling in Sept and with Main Cabin nonrefundable fare. Eventually we decided to fly the non-stop DL flight instead of a connection at CLT. Today I went in his account to cancel this ticket. AA website confirmed the cancellation with email. In the email it said AA issued a Flight Credit versus a Trip Credit like above reported DPs.

In his account when clicking on the Travel Credit in his account, there is only the Pop Up showing Flight Credit (with the "ticket number" and Record Locator) without the amount or expiration date. When clicked on the blue "View Credit" box, it brought up an error message.

I thought AA finally has stopped issuing Flight Credit and now only Travel Credit is issued? Or it would take a day or two before the Flight Credit became Trip Credit because right now you could not "View Credit". It only gave the info on the "Ticket Number" which is the "Voucher Number" and the originally ticket issued date which I assume would be the starting date of the one year clock.

It is so confusing trying to learn AA's system. We could not wait for the days we finally use up all the AA credits then we dont have to pay AA's higher fares / less convenient schedule from South Florida. Sigh.

williamc

I am having to cancel a nonrefundable main cabin ticket. According to all I have read, I will receive a trip credit dated from the original date of issuance of the ticket.

I will likely be using the trip credit to book another ticket in the next few weeks, but it will be a less expensive ticket.

Am I correct in assuming that I will receive another trip credit for the residual amount, with the original date of issuance?

Thanks.

golfmad

Yes. If you're entitled to receive a trip credit and you don't use all of it on the next trip you will receive another one with the remaining credit.

Happy

This is strange. I canceled my own ticket which was booked with the residual value from my husband's changed itinerary on the old refundable.
I received AA cancellation email with this wording -

Your trip was canceled on August 22, 2023 at 11:38 AM (CT). You still have remaining trip credit for use on future travel. You will receive a separate email shortly with your trip credit details.

So my canceled ticket results to a Trip Credit, although as of now, almost 12 hours later I still have not received "the separate email with your trip credit details". Since Trip Credit supposedly has one year validity from issuance, there is no hurry to get it now since I believe if it does not come automatically, I can go thru the "request refund" service to get it.

So, for the background, and future reference, should anyone still needs to figure out how AA issues Travel Credit, below was what happened

My husband had a place holder fully refundable ticket booked in January. We finally could use an AA itinerary (though eventually decided to use DL direct flight instead) for a Mid Sept travel. We went to Ft. Lauderdale ticket office to do the itinerary change. The agent at the ticket office changed his old refundable to the new itinerary (Main) then booked me on the same itinerary different PNR, with the residual value, with still a residual value paper voucher issued. I now believe the better way to do it might be to simply cancel the old fully refundable which should result to a Trip Credit because the original ticket was a fully refundable. Then used that Trip Credit to book 2 passengers on the same PNR. We might just bite the bullet to fly this 1-stop route versus DL's nonstop (and better time). We have the needs to board together. He has lowly gold I am a peon. Separate PNRs make boarding process awkward.

repoetic

It's been hard for me to keep track of what AA allows in terms of exchanging the value of a flight credit for a trip credit. Last March, I cancelled a trip and the AA agent and supervisor insisted that it's impossible to use the credit I received to book a flight for my mother because it was a flight credit, not a trip credit. This seemed weird because, for the past year, any cancelled flight was automatically converted to a trip credit right after cancelling. Today, I cancelled a flight and was pleasantly surprised to see that AA had automatically converted it to a trip credit, just as they had during COVID. Does anyone know if there's any rhyme or reason to this?? Has AA adopted a new position on whether they'll exchange a flight credit for trip credit? Thank you!

NW.BTR.Than.The.Rest

Just 4 days ago, I cancelled a ticket. It briefly existed in the TRAVEL CREDIT section as a FLIGHT CREDIT and a few hours later was reclassified as a TRIP CREDIT. This was great, because the TC is usable for a year from issuance. As you probably know, a FC was valid for travel only up until one year from the cancelled tix' issue date.

As an aside, some months ago, an EXP agent told me they were moving to TC exclusively. So much time elapsed, I had decided that was not going to happen. It was a pleasant surprise.

S80

The last time I asked (a few months ago), they wouldn't convert. I've had cancelled trips recently that have turned into trip credits, and others that stay as flight credits, and there doesn't seem to be a reason why.