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American Airlines Questions

Posted by (Franklin, Tennessee) on

Trying to avoid endless time on AA chat without reaching a live agent who clearly can explain our rights to me:
Does anyone know the present AA policy/rule on flight cancellations by the ticket holder?

For example, on August 1, 2024 we booked two round trip main cabin tickets from USA to Lisbon Portugal, departing USA on March 12, 2025. Should we choose to cancel those tickets on March 10, 2025, we will be issued, travel credits, trip credits or flight credits and will they be in credits to each of us separately?
Are all three of these “credits” still being issued by AA? What are the differences between them?

What will our deadlines then be to use those credits in the future, must we either rebook or rebook and begin travel or rebook and complete travel by August 1, 2025, or March 10, 2026? Should we rebook travel within the allowed time limit, may we cancel a second time and further extend our allowed reservation/flight time?

Thank you for anyone with current information on this subject.

Posted by
195 posts

Thanks Joe32f!
Great up-to-date chart. Here is what covers my situation :

“Trip Credit issued on or after April 2, 2024, AAdvantage® members have 12 months to use their Trip Credit when canceling their trip on aa.com or the American app and their AAdvantage® number is included in their reservation. Non-AAdvantage® members have 6 months.”

Questions for further comment:
My credit, if I were to cancel, would be a “Trip Credit”. As an AAdvantage member, under my above hypothetical two week trip (3/12-3/26/25) would I have until March 10, 2026 (12 months from cancellation date) to use it ?
Or, until 12 months from original scheduled March 12, 2025 departure date?
Or, 12 months from original scheduled March 26, 2025 completion of round-trip?
Finally, would I be able to extend the 12 month period farther out by cancelling a second reservation later within the allowed 12 month period?

Posted by
104 posts

My recent experience is travel credit must be used by 1 year of issuance. If you receive the credit on March 10, 2025, you must redeem by March 10, 2026. Travel can be later, it is redemption of travel credit that expires in 1 year.

I also understand that American Airlines no longer extends travel credits when cancelling reservations booked using travel credits. Your original travel credit expiration date, March 10, 2026 would still apply.

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