When it Rains.....It pours....an update.

Correct me if I am wrong ( have been living in smokey gritty wildfire air for a few days so brain may be less than optimal) but wasn't it the weather that mucked up things ?

No.....mechanical issues.

I "technically" arrived the next day and lost a night in the hotel.

So the trip cost you no more, but you lost the enjoyment of a 5-Star bed that you paid for? Interesting predicament. The 20,000 miles doesnt offset the feeling of hand pressed 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets?

Frank, just messing with you. I wouldnt be happy either.

With Delta, 20K miles would be equivalent to at least $200. Wouldn't that about pay for the night in a hotel?

Hello,

I was curious what the various U.S. Airlines policies are regarding mechanical delay/cancellation (therefore considered to be in their control). There is a chart on the Dept. of Transportation website.

It says that American gives Meal Voucher for over 3 hours and Hotel for Overnight Delay. Did they decide yours wasn't an actual Overnight?

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/airline-cancellation-delay-dashboard

Interestingly, Alaska/Hawaiian Airlines is the most passenger friendly.

because I am such a loyal customer, they added 20k miles to my Aadvantage account

Based on the EP Facebook group I am in, this seems to be a standard approach. They cancelled a flight last year and I was stuck in Charlotte overnight - they wouldn’t reimburse my hotel but gave me 7,500 miles for my trouble. Ha! For mechanical, I think they might have reimbursed you if you had paid for a hotel at your point of departure. But probably not a night you missed in your arrival city. Some people write again and escalate - if you have something that shows it was for mechanical, you might get something more.

@joey32F I am sorry about the fires and smoke. I feel your pain as I live in NorCal and had awful fires here.

@FrankII - We recently had a delayed international connection at JFK that pushed our flight from 9pm to next morning at 10am on Delta because of weather. My husband (who has high status and was upgraded to Delta One) said let’s just get a hotel and Delta will reimburse us. We only got $15 each as meal voucher (our kid also along).
Next day, at 1pm flight was canceled because they didn't have crew. Which was a controlled cancellation and they have to reimburse cost. We only got a flight out the next night, so we ended up arriving 2 days later than planned! Once flight was canceled, I booked a hotel under my name in the city.

Fast forward… my husband hotel and first night Uber were NOT reimbursed because flight at that point was just delayed 13 hours overnight due to weather 😡. He later got $400 as ecredit for future flight when he complained about it. We had separate reservations.

But expenses for the next day delay were reimbursed at about 90% including hotel, meals and transportation (under my reservation with kid). And my kid and I each got $250 ecredit as a token of goodwill.

Had this been a UK based airline, I would have received some financial compensation under UK law.

That would have also been true a couple of years ago for US airlines but the current US administration did away with any compensation requirements for passengers of US airlines that are delayed.

All the messages I received from AA said the cancellation was for mechanical reasons.

I really didn't expect any actual financial compensation. I figured they would either thow miles at me or some kind of voucher towards a future flight.

The reality, of course, was while I was delayed nearly nine hours, I did get to spend the waiting period in one of the nicer lounges at JFK Terminal 8. I hung out in the quiet room with all the food and drink I wanted. Upon arrival in London, I got to check into my airport hotel room as soon as I arrived to get a few hours of sleep thanks to a late checkout. I could have gone down to the restaurant for a free breakfast but I was too tired.

I also got credit for the flight in my AA AAdvantage account even though it was on BA. (I chose AA credit over BA credit.)

However, my attitude has always been "if you don't ask, you don't get." So I asked to see if American would offer anything. They did. It wasn't much but it was more than nothing.

And Mr. E, I hardly think a Hilton Garden Inn is a five star hotel. But it did have actual working air conditioning so that would make it five stars in Hungary. :)