AA Australian office closed!

[Dave Noble]

I'll try Hector again today, I wonder if he lost his job? I hope not, but at least you confirmed he is a real person! I thought the Indian lady was BSing me.

1 August and I assume he won't be answering anymore. I would get onto the AA ATW desk this morning ( 8am Sydney is 5pm ATW desk time ) and they are open for a while still. They will have you sorted out v quickly and send it off to be priced

Dave

 

[Tiki]

OK, I called AA ATW number, got a genuine American, not an Indian! She said I can't book until 331 days from the last segment which will be 4 Aug 2007. She also said it has to be paid for within 30 days of booking. There's no way I would have the money by then so I would have to wait until I am within 30 days of being able to at least charge it and pay in full before the interest free period runs out. She also said a travel agent with Sabre can issue the tickets, thus avoiding the Indian call centre! She didn't know the Sydney office was closed, but she did say that she can't process foreign credit cards.

 

[Dave Noble]

OK, I called AA ATW number, got a genuine American, not an Indian! She said I can't book until 331 days from the last segment which will be 4 Aug 2007. She also said it has to be paid for within 30 days of booking. There's no way I would have the money by then so I would have to wait until I am within 30 days of being able to at least charge it and pay in full before the interest free period runs out. She also said a travel agent with Sabre can issue the tickets, thus avoiding the Indian call centre! She didn't know the Sydney office was closed, but she did say that she can't process foreign credit cards.

You can book it. Just book the sectors after 330 days in advance and just have the remaining segments issued as open segments, they do not need to be dated. The person is, I believe, wrong in the ticketing requirements; if she will only hold for 30 days, just phone back 30 days later and get it extended until the ticketing deadline which I believe is 21 days prior to departure ( when the booking is made 22+ days before departure )

I would expect that the Indians can take payment when u finally want to pay.

Dave

 

[Reggie]

I attended the Qantas Business Travel Show in Perth today and there was and AA stand. Even more amazing the guy that was manning the stand had an Australian accent. I spoke breifly with him and he told me there are 4 of them left in Sydney, and yes the telecentre is in India. So good luck trying to speak to an aussie.

reggie

 

[icarus]

Just had a very irritating experience with the Indian call centre. I wanted to change my ORD-SLC flight so I could stay in Chicago a few days longer. I knew I would probably have to pay a fee as it was a cheap fare. The call centre woman (who was quite hard to understand, and who obviously found me hard to understand as well - a lot of spelling went on), couldn't tell me what the fee would be, but kept asking if I wanted to change the flight anyway. I told her that I'd make my mind up when I knew what the fee would be. SHe found this very hard to grasp. I explained that the AA website showed the flight I wanted had very cheap fares, so if the change fee were exorbitant, I'd just book another flight.

She told me to ring back in an hour when she'd be able to identify the change fee. I did, and spoke to someone completely different who told me the fee would be US$100. I said that in that case, I'd just book a separate flight, as the AA webste showed fares which were below that price. She wanted me to cancel the existing flight. I said no, if they weren't going to refund it, I might as well hang on to it and keep my options open. Again, she seemed to find it extraordinary that I would not cancel the flight with no refund forthcoming.

She then quoted me a fare much higher than the one on the AA website. I asked for the fare and she said she didn't have it. Couldn't look for it, couldn't tell me why the website showed a cheaper fare. I said in that case I'd surf around for a better deal and call back later; how long were they open? She said they could take calls until 6pm. I pointed out it was now 6.30pm. She said she meant 6pm in India - four hours from now. Glad I bothered to ask about that.

In any event, I just logged on to Expedia.com.au, found the cheaper AA fare in thirty seconds flat, selected my seat and booked and paid with my Aussie mastercard. The whole thing took me less than three minutes. If AA think I'm ever going to bother wrestling with their nightmare call centre and cough customer service ever again, they can forget it.

 

[Dave Noble]

The Indian staff are, imo, dire.

I would suggest making life easy and just calling the US office to make the bookings and just using the "Australian" office to pay for tickets if necessary

If booking an AA flight , you can go to aa.com and rather than press "purchase" , click on "hold" and then you have the reservation in place without having to speak to anyone till payment

Do be aware that if you book an AA flight at a 3rd party; if you need to make changes when away then if you contact AA to make the change, they have a USD15 fee for the change

Dave

 

[Dave Noble]

Although reservations has ceased at N Sydney, the office is still open for ticket issuing until some time in September

Dave

 

[Tiki]

What happens after Sept? I can't afford to pay for our RTWs until Jan next year. So if I call the US office and book, who issues it?

 

[Dave Noble]

What happens after Sept? I can't afford to pay for our RTWs until Jan next year. So if I call the US office and book, who issues it?

I assume that they are not closing the office until they have sorted out arrangements for ticketing to be handled somewhere.

Dave

 

[Tiki]

I forgot to mention my gold Amex Rewards Maximizer only has $3500 limit so I have to pay in installments, will probably take 3 installments and I pay it back to zero then make the next installment. Might take a week or so, depending on how quickly they process the transactions.

Will they want a deposit when I book it?

 

[Dave Noble]

I forgot to mention my gold Amex Rewards Maximizer only has $3500 limit so I have to pay in installments, will probably take 3 installments and I pay it back to zero then make the next installment. Might take a week or so, depending on how quickly they process the transactions.

Will they want a deposit when I book it?

If you pay the requisite amount into your credit card before making the purchase then you will have enough credit to pay the amount. They do not take a deposit when you hold the flights , just payment at time of ticketing

Dave

 

[NM]

If you pay the requisite amount into your credit card before making the purchase then you will have enough credit to pay the amount. They do not take a deposit when you hold the flights , just payment at time of ticketing

Dave

Unfortunately Amex will not allow you to make a single transaction of an amount greater than your defined credit limit. So even if Tiki was to pay $10,000 to Amex before the ticket purchase, no more than $3500 can be charged in a single transaction. Now having paid $10,000 into the card account would permits 3 individual transactions of $3,500 and another transaction of $3,000 to be made at the same time, but no single transaction can exceed $3,500.

In my experience this is different to the way most other CC providers operate.

 

[Tiki]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Very annoying, I used to do that with my Visa, just load it up when I wanted to make a large one-off purchase. Hopefully by the time I am able to purchase the ticket there will be a ticketing agent appointed, would be nice if they have a branch in Brisbane!

 

[Alan in CBR]

Unfortunately Amex will not allow you to make a single transaction of an amount greater than your defined credit limit. So even if Tiki was to pay $10,000 to Amex before the ticket purchase, no more than $3500 can be charged in a single transaction. Now having paid $10,000 into the card account would permits 3 individual transactions of $3,500 and another transaction of $3,000 to be made at the same time, but no single transaction can exceed $3,500.

In my experience this is different to the way most other CC providers operate.

I have an Amex Gold charge card with a $5000 line of credit.

Prior to my midnight rendezvous in CMB to pick up my DONE4, I contacted Amex asking whether I would have any problem charging $8000 to the card. They said they would make a note to allow the charge to go through.

Now I realise that a line of credit is not a credit limit as such (and that the charge cards are treated differently to the credit cards), but perhaps a call to Amex might allow a one-off large charge to be processed. I reckon it's worth a phone call to check.

 

[Tiki]

I might try asking for a one-off increase if it would still qualify for the 1.5 rewards points. I don't want them to think it's a cash advance. The other thing I could try (since I only just got the card a couple weeks ago) is over the next few months, build up a history of running it up to the max every month and paying it off in full so they can see I am a good customer. This will be easy because I have to pay off the cruise and normal monthly expenses.

Then I can request an increase to at least $5000 and pay each ticket (me and husband) separately. Does AA have a surcharge if you pay by Amex? I know the travel agents do. I won't be paying for the tickets until Jan at the soonest.

 

[FlyFirst]

Hi all

Does anyone have an actual number to speak to someone at the AA Sydney office re ticketing?

I have had numerous problems with the Indian call centre - particularly telling me they would bill my Australian card in AUD and billing is USD instead (with a whopping AUD17 'currency conversion' fee).

The problem is that if the fare is 'refunded' and then rebilled in AUD I will be charged another conversion fee on the USD refund - which I want to avoid.

The fare has also dropped since I purchased it - and AA is happy to refund the difference as per standard procedures, but they cannot process the refund via the US call centre and has annotated my booking to process the refund in New York - however I would like to get the matter resolved before travel.

Any help with a 'live' number for SYD would be appreciated.

With regards

FlyFirst

 

[Dave Noble]

Update on the AA office

The AA office is currently still open , though I was told when I was in there yesterday, that it is closing at the end of next week. They are then relocating to Mascot so there will still be a presence in Australia and ticket issuing/reissuing will still be available.

It won't , however, be a location which you can pop in to like the N Sydney one ( not that it seems that people pop in there anyway. I was in there for about an hour and no other person entered )

Dave

 

[clifford]

Good luck, Dave.

 

[serfty]

Update on the AA office

The AA office is currently still open , though I was told when I was in there yesterday, that it is closing at the end of next week. They are then relocating to Mascot so there will still be a presence in Australia and ticket issuing/reissuing will still be available.

I wonder if it will be directly contactable like with an 02 9.... 'phone number.

 

[Altair]

I wonder if it will be directly contactable like with an 02 9.... 'phone number.

Only if they give it to you! I bet the preferred number, or listed in the phone directory, will take you to India.