American Airlines have charged me twice and won't rectify it for two weeks.

pineapple*soul

I've been charged double for tickets I booked with American Airlines because of a mistake they made, its meant that my rent and bills will be late by two weeks and my bank account is in arrears of €400.

I talked to a customer service rep on the phone and emailed them, this was the response from the email which is pretty much the same as the rep's response:

"We're sorry for your frustration, pineapple*soul. We show you purchased your ticket on May 29th. You were not double charged, the other amount is an authorization hold on your account. This will be released within 7-10 business days. We'll see what we can do about getting that released on our end. You can also contact your bank and see if it can be released on your end."

Now my landlord is really pissed and the unpaid bills are going to have charges put on them, as well as the fact that I won't have access to any money for up to two weeks. It's a real ****in hassle

Anyone know how to upgrade this ****e into first class tickets?

tl;dr: American Airlines have charged me twice and won't rectify it for over two weeks. No money for rent, bills, food, travel. How can I get some compensation, such as upgrade to first class from it?

LeftBlank

Autorization holds are fairly common practice and it's up to your bank when they get released. AA didn't make a mistake. You should contact your bank.

BuffyBot

They haven't charged you twice: what you're being told is correct. They haven't made a mistake, and what you're seeing is perfectly normal with card payments.

It's not American's fault that your finances can't cover this, and it's not going to end up with you getting waved into first class.

pineapple*soul

BuffyBot wrote: »

It's not American's fault that your finances can't cover this, and it's not going to end up with you getting waved into first class.

Well that's only rude and unhelpful.

I shouldn't be expected to have €2,400 in my account to pay for €1,200 tickets. In what circumstances is that ever something a consumer should provide?

BuffyBot

It's merely fact.

Authorisation holds are often placed on card transactions. You have to factor that possibility when making a debit or credit card purchase is that the bank may set aside and it may be unavailable to you for a short period of time.

So not is only your tl;dr incorrect and you've placed the blame on the entirely incorrect party, your spurious wish for an upgrade is unreasonable and you've learned an unfortunate lesson.

Would you like us to say "Nope, it's all American's fault, prepare to be pampered?" when that's clearly not the case.

Oryx

I would be curious as to why the actual payment transaction didn't clear the pre authorisation? I thought that was how it worked. Can anyone explain that? I'm not in a situation like the op but it could easily happen.

rock22

BuffyBot wrote: »

It's merely fact.

Authorisation holds are often placed on card transactions. You have to factor that possibility when making a debit or credit card purchase is that the bank may set aside and it may be unavailable to you for a short period of time.

So not is only your tl;dr incorrect and you've placed the blame on the entirely incorrect party, your spurious wish for an upgrade is unreasonable and you've learned an unfortunate lesson.

Would you like us to say "Nope, it's all American's fault, prepare to be pampered?" when that's clearly not the case.

To be honest I would be contacting Consumer agency and financial Ombudsman.
Whether it is common or not, it should not happen. AA are taking double payment. The fact they /bank will release one of these later makes no difference to the OP.

Why should the OP be in debt because of the way AA and the Bank work? If it is a system fault then that system should be changed, by legislation if necessary.
One of the reasons consumers get treated so badly , if we get people like Buffybot justifying any abuse on the basis that "its merely fact" or "Authorisation holds are often placed on card transactions"

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Hang on. You were not charged twice. There was a charge and an authorised hold. Money was not taken twice and you bank cab release the hold. I can't see where your issue is; AA made a bit of a mess of it but there really is no big deal.

jhegarty

BuffyBot wrote: »

They haven't charged you twice: what you're being told is correct. They haven't made a mistake, and what you're seeing is perfectly normal with card payments.

It's not American's fault that your finances can't cover this, and it's not going to end up with you getting waved into first class.

They have made a mistake here.

The idea of an authorisation hold is that it gets converted into the actual charge, not that it's a separate charge.

The op is would his money for two weeks because of this.

GerardKeating

Oryx wrote: »

I would be curious as to why the actual payment transaction didn't clear the pre authorisation? I thought that was how it worked. Can anyone explain that? I'm not in a situation like the op but it could easily happen.

Slight oversimplification, but basically

1. Merchant (AA in this case) Request Authorisation for Transaction.
2. A short period (hours or days) later, Transactions is processed.
3. Transaction is not properly matched against original authorisation.
4. Customer is now (temporarily) down twice the transaction amount.
5. Eventually the original authorisation shadows expires and customer balance is back to normal.

The basic problem is step three, the issuing bank (the bank that issued the debit/credit card to the OP did not match the original authorisation request to the transaction when it is eventually presented for processing. This is an automated process but not necessarily their fault, the acquiring bank (whom ever processed for AA) might not have sent the details of the transaction properly for them to match it.

BuffyBot

Whether it is common or not, it should not happen. AA are taking double payment. The fact they /bank will release one of these later makes no difference to the OP.

They are not taking double payment. Only one payment will reach AA. There is only one payment. Authorisation is *not* a payment.

The idea of an authorisation hold is that it gets converted into the actual charge, not that it's a separate charge.

Not quite. You can have both. Normally the charge cancels out the authorisation, but not always.

One of the reasons consumers get treated so badly , if we get people like Buffybot justifying any abuse on the basis that "its merely fact" or "Authorisation holds are often placed on card transactions"

Yes, it's indeed my fault that the OP, is misinformed, greedy and jumping to all sorts of conclusions. What happened to them is unfortunate, but it's not an excuse to post the unsubstantiated and ill-informed rant.

Oryx

Its unfair to call the op greedy. If I didn't have access to 1200 of my own money and I didn't know why I would be pretty upset too.

BuffyBot

Well, I'm not sure what else trying to find a way wangle upgrades out of a company that's done nothing wrong is. By all means be upset, but be reasonable.

Polar101

7-10 working days sounds a bit odd, whenever I've had this happen it has only taken about 3 days before my card balance was correct again.

Goat the dote

Polar101 wrote: »

7-10 working days sounds a bit odd, whenever I've had this happen it has only taken about 3 days before my card balance was correct again.

I'd imagine they're covering themselves in case of delay. Also the under promise and over deliver-ie. they get it done in 3 days and you think it's marvellous that it took less than the 7-10.

GerardKeating

jhegarty wrote: »

They have made a mistake here.

The idea of an authorisation hold is that it gets converted into the actual charge, not that it's a separate charge.

The op is would his money for two weeks because of this.

But it might not be AA whom made the mistake, it could be the bank that issued the payment card to the OP...

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

OP contact your bank
I would put money on the error being on their end and that they can clear the matter for you.

Setun

BuffyBot wrote: »

Well, I'm not sure what else trying to find a way wangle upgrades out of a company that's done nothing wrong is. By all means be upset, but be reasonable.

In fairness to the OP, he/she thought AA had made a **** up, and flippantly asked how to get their ticket upgraded as means of compensation. They have since learned what the cause of the issue is - i.e. according to you, a glitch in the transaction system. They are not still looking for AA to upgrade them are they? No. So they're not being greedy, they were just looking for some sort of recourse after an upsetting and unexpected situation that is probably going to hang over them for the coming month as they play catch up with bills/rent.

OP - just ring your bank first thing in the morning as advised. Explain the situation calmly to them, and see what the actual deal is, how it happened, and when it is likely you'll get the balance returned to your account.

Aliveireland

I know this thread is a bit old but the same thing has just happened to me this week and blocked me from accessing my money for over a week.
I noticed the error and contacted my bank who told me that when I bought the tickets that AA contacted them and they gave them a code for them to access my funds and when they had done so that they were to close off the code but they didn't and promptly requested the same amount again which they couldn't because the money wasn't there but this caused an overdraw on my account which meant that in ow can't access my account to payment bills.
I Talked to somebody in AA India office who admitted the fault straight away but all she could do was apologise and email me a letter explaining that they no longer wished to hold that money so I can bring it to my bank so that they will release my funds over a week later.
For me I find this totally unacceptable that a company can request to hold money in your account even after they have received the full payment fort the product that you have ordered and it be ok for them to block you from accessing your OWN money for any time let alone a week.

keithclancy

BuffyBot wrote: »

Well, I'm not sure what else trying to find a way wangle upgrades out of a company that's done nothing wrong is. By all means be upset, but be reasonable.

Whats wrong with trying to get an upgrade on the basis that they have seriously inconvenienced the OP ?

I've gotten upgrades based on less.

WildCardDoW

10 months too late there keithclancy! :P

Yamanoto

keithclancy wrote: »

I've gotten upgrades based on less.

I'd wager elite status may have played a part in your bump?

Nody

Aliveireland wrote: »

For me I find this totally unacceptable that a company can request to hold money in your account even after they have received the full payment fort the product that you have ordered and it be ok for them to block you from accessing your OWN money for any time let alone a week.

Actually it tends to be your own bank that's the root cause of the problem from my experience. I've had holds lasting up to 30 days where the merchant released the hold directly but the bank refused to execute it and would only do it manually if I sent in a whole slew of documents to back it up.

Thoie

I disagree (and no, I don't work for a bank) - the problem is usually caused by poorly trained agents who either don't know how to close out a pre-auth sale, or just can't be arsed and start a new one.

While I'm sure it could happen, I've never heard of the bank systems not managing to match the codes. Any time I've come across this issue it's always down to lack of training/laziness on the sales agents side.

AliveIreland, the fastest way, if you can manage it, is to conference in the airline and the bank together, get them talking directly, and make them sort it out on the phone. This isn't always easy.