Won't ever be using American Airlines again

I'm sure many people won't think this is interesting news, what with the implosion of airline profits lately. But it just goes to prove that the airlines don't have a clue, and their negative profits are due to their own failures. Rather than creating reasons NOT to fly them (e.g. baggage surcharges, rude flight attendants, poor customer support), they should be creating reasons that I should fly with them, ESPECIALLY reasons that don't really cost them anything.

From St. Croix, it's pretty hard to get a flight on any airline other than American, but it is possible to fly on Delta, Cape Air, and sometimes Continental. So I have been booking all of my flights on AA for the past three years while I've lived here. I travel on average once a month, so understandably, I've accumulated quite a lot of frequent flyer miles and been giving Platinum status. We also often fly employees here for meetings, and they all use American for their travel to St. Croix and some trips elsewhere. So you think American would love me by now. Not so.

My last three legs of flights through American have all been canceled, each one requiring an overnight stay, wasting nearly 72 hours of my time. That, alone, is maybe forgivable as bad luck until you realize that all 3 flights that were canceled were canceled due to mechanical problems. Completely their fault. (On one of them, an airline mechanic for a different airline was seated next to me. When he heard what the problem was, he told me it was a non-issue and that it was well within tolerances and pilots just liked to complain about it all the time. They canceled the flight anyway.) American "compensated" me by giving me 3,000 miles for the first canceled flight, nothing for the 2nd, and 5,000 for the 3rd. That's a total value of $200 dollars, valuing my 72 lost hours at $2.78/hr. Gee, thanks.

Understandably, my next flight is booked through a different airline.

But here's where it gets worse. I called American to give them a chance to win back my business. I have to imagine that customers usually don't do this after being screwed 3 times in a row. After being transfered 3 times by sympathetic CSRs, I finally spoke with John Lindsy in the "Executive Office". I explained my situation (3 canceled flights in a row, travel 10-12 times per year, 10 employees that fly occasionally), and I made a simple request. I'm already well into Platinum status with American; give me a complimentary upgrade to Executive Platinum, just for the remainder of the plan year (8 months). It has a few extra benefits that don't really cost AA anything; priority boarding and upgrades (space available - so those seats would be empty anyway), etc. and I would give American another shot.

His response was quite simple: "No," he said. "If I give you Executive Platinum status, I'd have to give it to everyone." "No", I responded, "only to Platinum members who have gotten canceled three times in a row and use your airline exclusively." "Well, there are many people in that situation, so I can't grant you that request." "Wow, I'm very disappointed. What are you willing to offer me to convince me to try American again?" "We've already given you 8,000 miles. That's all that we can compensate you." "You can take back those 8,000 miles if you want to offer me something else; frankly they don't even come close to making me want to try American again." "You can donate those miles to charity if you don't want them."

Wow, just wow... I thought American's frequent flyer program was good, but it's all just a game. They are not interested in retaining their regular customers, even with simple and cheap requests.