The Millers in Motion Podcast
The Millers in Motion Podcast
Join Ryan and Lauren Miller as they take you beyond the world of RVing to explore all things travel! Whether it’s road trips, flights, cruises, or the hidden gems of small towns and big cities, the Millers bring you along for the ride. In each episode, we’ll dive into our latest adventures, share insider tips, discuss travel challenges, and meet fascinating people along the way. Whether you're an experienced traveler, a weekend wanderer, or just looking for inspiration for your next trip, we’ve got stories and insights that will inspire your journey. Let’s keep those wheels rolling—wherever the road, sky, or sea might take us!
The Millers in Motion Podcast
Navigating Travel Nightmares: Our American Airlines Adventure and Lessons Learned
A flight to Wisconsin for a Green Bay Packers game turned into an odyssey of delays, diversions, and disarray. We recount our whirlwind adventure with American Airlines, where unexpected weather threw a wrench into our carefully laid travel plans. This episode explores the frustration of dealing with inconsistent and often conflicting information from airline staff, alongside the challenge of navigating a system that seems to prioritize corporate interests over passenger needs. Our story serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of air travel, encouraging listeners to be their own advocates in the face of uncertainty.
Ever been promised a reimbursement that seemed too good to be true? We have, and it was a rollercoaster of false assurances and mixed messages. When our flight was unexpectedly diverted, we were thrust into a night of chaos, complete with scrambling for last-minute accommodations and relying on an airline app that offered more headaches than help. This chapter of our journey shines a light on the necessity of documenting every expense and keeping a skeptical eye on financial promises made by airlines. Hear how we navigated the chaos and emerged with a treasure trove of lessons learned, from managing travel disruptions to the crucial importance of digital backups.
The trials didn't end with the flight diversions; they followed us into the airport, where security hurdles and boarding pass issues tested our patience yet again. We faced the ironic challenge of using previous day's boarding passes and became intimately familiar with the regular security lines despite our TSA pre-check status. Finally, tired and battle-worn, we were able to share our thoughts on the inefficiencies of American Airlines' policies. Through candid communication with their representatives, we discuss the broader need for empathy and transparency in customer service, reinforcing our resolve to support companies that truly prioritize their passengers. Join us as we relay our travel horror stories and strive for positive change in the industry.
Why you should never, ever, ever, trust anything regarding money coming out of the words of an airline's personnel, whether it be on the phone or in person. Always assume they're going to do what's in the best interest for them, not their customer. Welcome back to the podcast If it's your first time here. My name is Ryan and, with my wife Lauren, we have been full-time traveling, whether it be in our RV or via the air, for almost two and a half years now, and yes, I understand that this is kind of a go without saying that shocker massive companies in America want to do what benefits their bottom line, not what it does to the people that actually pay for their services. Well, in a quick little nutshell, I can tell you that we are going to, from now on, be going massively out of our way to not fly American Airlines anymore, because of not so much what happened during the flight, which was a cluster to begin with, but what happened after the flight, more importantly. So let me break this down in a little bit of a way that kind of explains the entirety of the story, and I understand that this is going to be one-sided. I did not ask American Airlines for any sort of a comment or anything along those lines, and because I'm still actively going back and forth with them, because at this point all I want is an apologies that an employee lied. And I say this knowing I just got my last couple of emails this morning and I am recording this as of Monday, november 11th. So this is, if you listen to it, the day it comes out, which is Wednesday tomorrow. This is the previous day, so just know I've been dealing with this. So, okay, let's talk a little bit about the trip, the flight, what kind of happened? And just shot by shot.
Speaker 1:So recently, and if you're watching the main YouTube channel, we went on a quick trip up to Wisconsin. Originally it was for a Green Bay Packers football game, which you'll see that this weekend. It was cold, it was wet, it was rough. So if you love watching Ryan, be really uncomfortable, you're going to love next week's video. But as far as the flight portion of it, we did a little bit of a unique travel days because of how we use miles and points to kind of effectively minimize our cost on air travel. So we originally flew from the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to General Meacham, which is in Milwaukee, wisconsin. We then rented a car, drove from Milwaukee, wisconsin, over to—we drove from Milwaukee, wisconsin, over to Madison, wisconsin.
Speaker 1:Why did we go from Madison—why did we go from Milwaukee to Madison? If we're going to go to Green Bay, well, my folks have a place there and it was a crime of opportunity. So we went over there, we stayed the night, went to the Packer game, the next day, drove back to Madison and then the following day we drove back from Madison back to Milwaukee, and we were going to fly from Milwaukee back to DFW. Why not fly directly to Madison? Wasn't so much the cost or the miles? It was cheaper to go in and out of Milwaukee, but the schedule. Milwaukee is a bigger airport and Madison is a very small airport. So there's only a couple of flights a day from DFW that we can get in on, and none of them really worked with our schedule. So, and then Green Bay. It was drastically more expensive to fly into the Appleton Green Bay airport because of the Packers football game. So we decided to fly into Milwaukee and just drive this day, which, you know, there could be argument made that we set ourselves up for failure there. But at the same time too, you expect a reasonable outcome. So we go through the trip, everything's hunky-dory I mean as much as cold and wet Wisconsin can be in a Packers loss. We get back to Milwaukee with plenty of time and we're getting ready to board the flight.
Speaker 1:So this day, which was last Sunday, which the weather in North Texas was a little less than desirable, so this was about a week ago. So we're talking Monday, november 4th. Well, the previous night through the next day, so the 3rd through the 4th, the weather through really most of the United States, at least the central portion of the United States, was less than favorable, and I get that. It was actively storming in Texas. Well, the storms had moved enough out of the way.
Speaker 1:But obviously in air travel, if the storms are bad enough, they shut down airports, they shut down those things. So what they do is the airport initiates what's called a ground stop, which essentially means that no flights are coming in. So that gets lifted. But then they have to unravel the backlog of flights that have been diverted or holding in an air pattern somewhere, all of those things. Right, and I'm not going to go into the great detail about all that because that is air travel and I don't know the official operations terms and a lot of the things that go into that.
Speaker 1:But what ends up happening is we get to the airport about an hour, hour and a half before our flight takes off, which you know DFW, I'd say get there a little earlier than that. We're at Milwaukee, which is notoriously not busy, so we breeze right through security, everything. We actually go get some dinner and we get that first notification that the flight's been delayed by about I think it was an hour, maybe 45 minutes to an hour, and so you know which is? It's annoying, but it is what it is, it's fine. There's weather, we get it, and so we kind of go about our day. We were watching, you know, one of our new favorite shows is called the traders on Peacock, and so we're watching that on my laptop in the terminal. You know, called the Traders on Peacock, and so we're watching that on my laptop in the terminal. We both have headphones on and we're just kind of minding our own business.
Speaker 1:So we get a little more of a delay and they're doing a decent job of explaining what's going on. So we actually go and we board right and, as we're all sitting down and get cozied in for the about two and a half hour flight back from Milwaukee down to Dallas. The pilot pops on and says hey, explain what I already just explained in detail. So the pilot did a phenomenal job of keeping us in the loop, because, at the end of the day, I think if you're more informed, you're more than likely going to have some grace.
Speaker 1:It's when companies and or people try to get away with stuff and not tell you what's going on is probably where my biggest frustration lies, and that is like, if you're not, there's two types of people out there. There's the ones that want to understand. I'm telling you, I want to understand, and I feel like it's a better transparency, that you're going to have a little more grace from people if you're just honest with them. I'm not a big fan of the other, of just like, oh, I'll just tell them some of the story, not all of the story, that kind of a thing. So they actually have us get off the flight because we're going to have to sit there for another hour or two. And then they're a little unsure because Dallas isn't giving them an official clearance into the airspace quite yet, which is what our pilot is waiting for, and you can actively tell that our pilot is frustrated by this, because you know that he's doing his best to get us there that evening in some capacity. So we get off the plane with our luggage, everything. So then they decide that okay, they're getting clearance and so now we're going to reboard. So this is an hour, hour and a half later, something like that. Again, this is all frustrating, but it's part of travel and so we're very much so go with the flow when it comes to that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:So you know, we went back out, we started watching our show again, you know use the restroom, wandered around kind of did a few things and then we got back on. So we get back on, we take off, and Lauren and I looked at each other and said, oh, there we go, we're getting in the air, we're going to get there one way or another. So we're about an hour-ish into the flight and because of the storms, they decided to take a more Western route, which for us meant flying down more towards St Louis and then kind of in Kansas City and then down South that way. And you know we're somewhere in Kansas, over Kansas, and the pilot gets on and says well, unfortunately, you know, they reclosed the airspace, for whatever reason, no idea why. Um, then, from there they decided that we were going to go over to um, wichita and just circle right. So they're putting us in a holding pattern, essentially because of, again, there's so many flights coming into the North Texas airspace that they were just trying to get it to unravel a little bit and because we had taken off later, we were on the low end of that list.
Speaker 1:So we go over to Kansas City, so we're doing circles over Kansas City for, honestly, not too long, maybe 20 or 30 minutes. And then that's when our pilot came on and said well, you know, they're asking us to go ahead and put down at a diverted airport, so officially, our flight's being diverted. And then we fly about 20 minutes back the other direction, 30 minutes, and we land at the Kansas City airport, which full sidebar, very nice airport, and so obviously, you know, there's not a lot of we're trying to figure out if we're going to take back off, and so we sat on the plane there at a gate for, I don't know, maybe another 30 or 45 minutes. Again, I'm sticking with that. This is all very annoying, but it's part of it.
Speaker 1:Um, and the issue that was communicated to us via the flight crew was the problem we were starting to run into wasn't so much that there wasn't a want to get there tonight that the the flight crew was starting to run into, wasn't so much that there wasn't a want to get there tonight that the flight crew was starting to reach their service hours. So, and again, I'm not 100% sure what exactly they are, but there's so many hours they're allowed to fly, versus they have to be in a hotel resting for X amount of hours before they're allowed to get back on a plane and fly it. So what's happening is they're starting to butt up against the other side of that and if we don't take off in the next I think he said like 45 minutes to an hour, again speculative. I'm kind of basing this off of what the pilot was saying that you know we wouldn't be able to take back off. Well, you know they finally, after about 45 minutes to an hour, nobody would give him the information needed so that he could make a call of whether or not we're going to wait for the 20 minutes then we're going to take off or we're going to. At that point, just we're going to get off the plane and try this all again the next day, which would have been the worst case scenario. Best case scenario is we get back in the air and we would have gotten there late, probably midnight 1 am. At this point Our original arrival time was, I think, 6.30 or 7.30 at night. So the call is finally made that, even if they take off at this point, that they're going to hit their service hours and be forced down anyway. So the pilot makes the decision that we're going to just try again in the morning or essentially as soon as they can, based on their service hours. So we are now officially diverted and stuck in Kansas City.
Speaker 1:You know, obviously there's a couple of scenarios that are happening here. Again, this is all happening on Monday November 4th. There's a Monday night football game that night and of course it's in Kansas city with the chiefs Um, I don't a hundred percent remember who they're playing. And so as we come off the plane they said just hang out for a little bit and a agent will be up there to explain kind of processes, all of that stuff. So then, um, the the gate agent decides that he's going to start telling the story a couple of times so that not, you know, 175 to 250 people are all crowded around an area that really isn't meant for that. And so he starts talking and says you know, unfortunately, due to the Chiefs game, there's no hotels available, which you know. You're hearing that going great, that's perfect. Which you know. You're hearing that going great, that's perfect.
Speaker 1:And then he decides that he says that unfortunately, because of that, they can't hand out any hotel vouchers for us to get a room on American's dime, but does tell us that if we can find a hotel, that by law and I'm quoting this verbatim at this point, by law, american is required to reimburse us for our expenses because we were not planned and it was a diversion, disregards the weather portion of it completely and just says because it's a diversion, now if you were? And then I piped up and asked I said are you sure? Because I'm about to go spend money I don't really want to spend, but you're telling me I'm going to be reimbursed. And he said yes, if it was because of weather. Like, I guess they classify things at least in his head they classify things as weather or a diversion. And I said even if this diversion was caused by weather, he said you didn't land in the airport you were expected to land and therefore it's a diversion, regardless of the reason why. And so Lauren and I said okay, so we're looking for a hotel, which you know I don't know why they said there wasn't any available. I think what he meant to say was there were none available that he could send a voucher for to where they could be billed back essentially. And so, from that standpoint, yes, the hotel that was physically there at the airport was full, but we were able to find a four points by Sheridan just literally right outside the airport grounds. So we decide to let's go ahead and book that. It was about after tax, it was about $165, $175 just for the night. Realistically it's for about 12 to 13 hours, and then the second portion comes available and that and that is. You know, hey, what time do we need to be back here? Because obviously we don't have, like we're not supposed to be here. Like how are we supposed to know what time we need to be at the airport? By what time is our flight departing so we can plan all of that stuff? And he said just keep checking the app and it'll update with the new flight. So there's two main points that I'm going to come back to In that process.
Speaker 1:He's made the announcement a second time and he said things a little bit differently. And then he said make sure and keep all your receipts for anything that you buy within reason. I mean, if you go out drinking, they're not going to reimburse you for that. Or if you buy souvenirs, you're obviously not going to get reimbursed for that. But hotel food, that kind of thing, it's an unexpected travel thing. Save all your receipts and you'll get reimbursed.
Speaker 1:I, at the second time, asked one more question. That was how, how do we get reimbursed? How do we go about that process? I was not going to leave that agent without knowing where to go and he said you go down to the Contact Us at the bottom of the American Airlines website and from there Contact us at the bottom of the American Airlines website and from there you will be able to fill out the information, you'll send an email in and then from there you'll be able to get a person. You essentially send them your receipts and then they'll issue a reimbursement. You know he goes. However, they decide to do that, whether it's via card check, whatever. So Lauren and I go okay and and we walk away from that.
Speaker 1:You know, I had this little bit of an uneasy feeling, and this is why, at the very top of the show, I said never trust anything when it comes to money out of their mouths, like, get an overabundance, like. And I'll tell you where I feel, like at the end, where I feel like the airline went wrong and where we went wrong. And I'm not by any means saying that this is all on the airline and it's not necessarily all on us. Now I think it is mostly on the airline and again, we'll get into that in a minute but we also made a few mistakes in this process too. And so we do what pretty much the entire flight's doing at this point right, we go ahead and book a hotel and we're trying to find an Uber.
Speaker 1:Obviously, this is all 11 o'clock at night now, so we're starving. We haven't eaten since lunch, so we're hungry. The airport's kind of closed slash, closing. Well, the airport sells open, but none of the food places are open, and so we're. We're looking at this from the standpoint of well, okay, we need to get some food, we need to find somewhere to sleep, and then we'll just get up and do it all again, and then at some point, either tonight or first thing tomorrow morning, we will look at that from the standpoint of when do we need to be back and we'll figure all that out.
Speaker 1:So we booked the hotel. We have an absolute cluster trying to get out, because we're not the only flight at this point that's been diverted to Kansas City. But we get a hotel room, we get over, we try and find an Uber, which we cannot find because there's not, between the game and the diverted flights, there are none that are available. So we're waiting for almost 30 minutes for an Uber. And then finally, the shuttle. We didn't realize there was a shuttle that was available for the hotel and that just happened to show up close to where we were. We popped on that, which was perfect. So we get to the airport. You know we order some DoorDash because, quite frankly, we don't have a car, there's nothing within walking distance of the hotel, and so we we DoorDash, the only thing that was open, which is good. Old Whataburger, I got to live there 24 hours.
Speaker 1:You know we go to sleep, and right before we go to sleep, at about one in the morning, I'm looking and now our flight has just disappeared from the app completely, which is awesome. So I'm like, well, maybe they're actively updating it as we speak. We'll just check it first thing in the morning. You know, one of the questions that was asked at the ticket agent is like when should we plan on? He said my best estimate between nine and 10 AM. Obviously he goes. That could change depending on how quickly we can get the pilot and the flight crew to the hotel and down so they can come back. So and I get that that was a moving target, I just wanted the early possible so that we could plan around it. So we set an alarm for, I think, 6.30 or so in the morning, just to kind of like I think we were going to try and be out by about 7.30 from the hotel. Again, we're five minutes from the airport slash terminal via a shuttle, so I wasn't super worried about being late as long as we didn't oversleep that alarm.
Speaker 1:So you know, the next morning we get up and we're coming to right, it's not perfect, but we're getting there and we decide, while Lauren's in the bathroom getting ready to go for the day, I get on the app and the flight's still not there. Well, now I'm having a slight panic. It's like well, what am I supposed to do here? Um, and this is where. Uh, well, let me get through the rest of this and I'll talk about some tips that I would give to anybody traveling after this experience that I will do every single time Now, uh, learn from my mistakes, people.
Speaker 1:So we go back to the airport and we're told to just use our previous day boarding pass, which is fine to a point Again, I'll get into that so, previous day boarding pass, and then, you know, go through security, like you normally would. Everything that you use the first day is good for the second day. Okay, that's fine, because the plane, the crew, us, none of us are supposed to be at this airport, right? So we go through the security line. Well, lauren and I both have TSA pre-checked because we fly so much and so, naturally, it's on our boarding pass, still from the previous day. So we go in the pre-check line, which we don't wait too long, maybe 10 minutes. But we get up there and we get denied pre-check. He's like well, you don't have pre-check? I'm like yes, I do, it's right there. Well, they make us go through the regular line. Well, because we have the channel and we document things.
Speaker 1:I always have a portable recorder for the podcast with me, I have camera gear, I have a laptop, I have hard drives. Sometimes not all the time, but sometimes they make me take most of my electronics out. The computer always comes out if it's a non-TSA line. And let's just say I've had experiences before where a person will pick up a camera and because it's that like they'll want to visually inspect it and not my current one, because I would have lost my shoot if it was my current one, because it's an expensive camera and then he accidentally dropped it. Luckily it was a cheaper camera and it really didn't hurt it. But if that had been my current camera, it's a little more fragile. He definitely would have broken it and probably cost me about somewhere in the city of four to $6,000, depending on everything that was broken on it If it was completely toast six grand, easy, just the lens 2,500, body the rest. So yeah, I'm more particular about that.
Speaker 1:That's why we do pre-check. So we go through the regular line. Now we have to take my computer out. Luckily they didn't make me take all my camera gear out. But shoes off, belts off, you know all the things that I get pre-checked for I don't even care about the speed, to be completely honest with you. I get it for the convenience of not having to do all of that.
Speaker 1:So we get in there, we finally get through security and I told Lauren. I said you know, we can get here and have breakfast, we'll have some coffee, we'll find somewhere that we can actually just sit down, you know, have two or three cups of coffee, get a little breakfast in us and just kind of find somewhere to chill, because we're about two hours early for the 10 o'clock. Well, we still can't find our flight information at all. They obviously let us through security, so they're aware, but I can't find our flight information. And the second thing that becomes a little bit of a problem is what we're starting to notice is people can't access their boarding passes anymore because they left them in the app and they didn't put them in their wallet. Whether you have an Android and Apple, you always have the option of putting things in your wallet, like passes with QR codes. We put ours in our wallet, luckily, and I can tell you one of the tips going forward is we're also going to screenshot those from here on out, because even some people, though it expired in their wallet, for whatever reason. So again, all they had to do is go up to the ticket counter and get a reprinted ticket.
Speaker 1:But now you're in line for security and your boarding pass doesn't work. Now you have to stand in another line. And this is where I love priority and I hate priority, because if you're in the priority line it's not that bad, but if you don't have priority, you don't fly very often. Then you're kind of screwed, like if you're running late or they decide to put that flight at 9 am and not 10 or 11, I mean you're under the gun now all of a sudden, because that line was long, because everybody that came in for the Kansas City football game the night before is trying to leave as well, plus the normal business travelers and all that stuff on a Monday morning I guess this is Tuesday morning, now the 6th, so, anyway, or the 5th, I'm sorry, this is officially election day. So they finally, you know, they say that we're going to take off at 11.
Speaker 1:So Lauren and I wandered down to the gate at about 10, 15, uh, kind of the same thing. We just sit there and we relax a little bit, okay, and we get on the plane we come back. Everything at that point is pretty uneventful. So I will tell you at this point is where I start to get a little frustrated, because now what? What obviously happens is, you know we had paid for.
Speaker 1:So I always use the parking spot here in Dallas, fort Worth. You may or may not have that at an airport near you. I use it because it's convenient. I have loyalty points with them. It's just, it's cheaper, it's easy, it's off site, so I don't have to deal with all the traffic of the airport. I just park, they get at me. I've never had, knock on wood, a poor experience with them. I mean, I've had slower and faster experiences, but everyone's always super happy, super easygoing and it just has worked. And at the end of the day, that's what I look for in travel. As long as it just works, I'm good.
Speaker 1:So we land, we get back home and we kind of are recapping At this land. We get back home and you know, we, we, we kind of, are recapping. At this point we're both exhausted. Obviously we want to get the pups picked up from their little doggy daycare that they go to when we travel like this. We get them picked up, you know. We get back to the RV, get it opened up, um and back to functioning. And again, if you're listening to this and you don't know who officially we are, we also full-time in our Alliance Valor 44 V14, which is a big fifth wheel toy hauler.
Speaker 1:So you know, we have a little bit more of getting back to normal than some people do, because when we travel we pull our slides in, we turn our water off, propane off, all of those things. So we have to turn some stuff back on. While it's not a lot, it's enough that it's not like just walking back into your house, throwing your bag on the ground and going I'm home, it's. It's a little bit more drawn out than that. So we get everything together and we decide, okay, let's get this stuff together and we shoot an email or we do exactly what the gate agent told us to in Kansas city we get all of our documents together. I still have all my screenshots of receipts and hotel folio invoice, which you know was really just the room rate, and all that stuff. I have all this ready to go.
Speaker 1:I shoot that email and the first email I get. For starters, it's like 48 hours after I shot that first email, which in and of itself is annoying. Yes, you get the automated response that they received it, but you never get like everything feels I'm not going to say computer generated, but almost AI generated now, Like either they're just copying and pasting crap from a script in or AI is actually writing their and I'm using air quotes that you can't see legitimate responses, not just the. We received your information, we'll get back with you within whatever the time frame was, which I believe was 48 hours, and they damn near waited till the 48th hour. So we get it back and essentially it it, in a very computer-esque voice, says we're not, unfortunately because of weather, we can't reimburse you for any of this, and so we're getting ready to go to a birthday dinner for Lauren's little sister.
Speaker 1:This is a few days after we got back, so now it's Friday and by the time I finally get this response, keep in mind, we landed on Tuesday. I sent it on Wednesday night, when I finally was able to get everything together and send it over, and I didn't get a response until Friday late afternoon, like 5.30. And I'm fuming right, because this one person said this. This other person said something completely different. So I actually do would like to say that I understand that the people on the customer service other end, that if there's a real person on that back end saying something that they are a person and they don person and they have company and corporate policies and that they don't have any control over what they can and can't do, they're just the ones that are essentially put in a really shitty spot and have to communicate this to people.
Speaker 1:And I will tell you that there is a new FAA, dot, one of the entities called. There's a new program where airlines can no longer sit on refunds for you Like. There's a lot more stingent rules that are in the favor of the consumer. Unfortunately, you know, the verbiage on if you're diverted, you know, is vague and it says, like you know, they're not required by law to reimburse you, but most airlines do so to maintain a happy customer base. So putting that with what American Airlines decision was to not reimburse us says that American Airlines could give such less of a shit about the people that are on their planes that they're not worthy of business anymore.
Speaker 1:And this is coming from somebody that grew up flying American. My dad retired from American Airlines after 35 years as vice president of human resources, and if you work for an airline, at least back then they have statuses that people fly on like employees, and if you're a baggage handler, unfortunately you're flying low I think it's like D10 or something like that and it's just how essentially much you need an actual ticket versus like the fly standby kind of a thing. My dad was an A3. The top is A1. To give you an eye, the only ones that had A1 was the chief executive team, um, and he was a A3. And so that gives you kind of an idea here. So I've flown American airlines literally since I was seven months old. Okay, I am now 41. So I've flown American for almost 41 years and I say that the least amount I've ever flown in a year is probably three times the most I've ever flown in a year.
Speaker 1:Um, a lot, let's just say Um. So it's not like I don't have history with this airline. They've always frustrated me a little bit, but never to this point of me saying I'm done, I just can't do this anymore. So I the things that went wrong here, obviously, and I went back and forth with the person, with the customer service stuff, and from last Friday to now, and it is one of those situations where you kind of look at it and you go well, I'm tired of getting these canned responses that sound like ai's writing. I'm like I can tell the difference in ai, at least right now. I mean, that's probably going to change soon. Um, I and this is where I start to get frustrated, and I'm actually staring at my email because I literally I'm recording this. I started recording at about nine, probably about 939.45, something like that. It is currently 959. And I just got another response and I'm going to read it here in a second.
Speaker 1:But you know who's in the wrong here. There's an American Airlines employee in Kansas City that either blatantly lied to us or shouldn't have been talking about it, and the company has a policy and, for whatever reason, even though I've asked for these things to be escalated to a supervisor is also not happening. So I've gone back and forth now multiple times and you know, just because Lauren and I can afford to stay in the hotel, it doesn't mean I would have made that call, and I think that's. The frustrating thing is if somebody was in the position where I mean, listen, at the end of the day we're talking $200 to $250-ish of expenses, right? So the hotel was about $175, food was about $30, and then we paid another $20 and over what we didn't pre-book through the parking spot because we were supposed to be back, you know, 18 hours prior, and so between all that it was about $2 to $250. So I could imagine most other people are somewhere in that same ballpark, right?
Speaker 1:And if there's somebody that was told they're going to get reimbursed and they, for whatever reason, can't afford to spend that money One, they're stuck literally just being homeless for the night in the airport which airports put those? You know, the places where you sit have armrests, which is fine, but those armrests can't move, and so you're literally stuck sitting up in a bad chair for 10 hours at that point, and or sleeping on the floor, which is complete crap as well. I mean, the fact that American Airlines knows that and doesn't care is the part that I start to have a problem with. And let's say you spent that money, let's say you had that money to spend right now, but now you can't make rent, you can't make a car payment, you can't make whatever reason, because you weren't expecting to spend another $250, $200, whatever on these unexpected travel expenses. Well, that person at this point is just shit out of luck and I'm sorry. I know we don't normally curse on this, but I'm hot. That person is screwed Like now if the difference in them making rent and not making rent is $200, and now they're being told what. They're not going to be able to make rent because they were lied to in Kansas City.
Speaker 1:Why gate agents that work for American Airlines don't have a script for certain scenarios I have no clue. And why there's not a supervisor forcing them to read that. In a certain way, I would have been less annoyed if I had just known back there that, hey, you're actually because we took off, unfortunately we don't reimburse due to weather. Okay, and you don't have any like. If your policy says you're going to give a voucher, then you should be willing to reimburse. If your policy says you don't get a voucher, then I understand not getting reimbursed, but be honest with us, right? Don't excuse my language, but don't fuck around with us.
Speaker 1:I'm so tired of companies like this feeling like they can get away with everything because there's so many people. And the crappy part is, is that I understand that Americans never going to hear this the people at American Airlines, while there's probably a ton of amazing people that work there, the company as a whole. This policy specifically inside of that company is complete and utter crap, and the people. I feel bad for the ones that can't afford to do this and had to sleep on a hotel bench, whether this is our flight, some other flight, because this happened all over the country. This is not a singular incident. Now, our pilot said in 35 years he's never had to deal with something like this. And I get that. I've been flying for 41 years. I've never truly I've had delays and I've had long delays, but I've never had it where. Not only was I in the air and diverted and then couldn't take back off, we got stuck overnight in a different airport or a different city.
Speaker 1:And then to couple that with the fact that they're not doing what's right and I think that's the biggest pet peeve is just do what's right and so many of these major corporations there's a big reason why Lauren and I try not to eat at these big corporate restaurants anymore. We try to do the mom and pops because, at the end of the day, they're the people that need the money. These corporations, like you know, the Americans, the Deltas, the United I'm not lumping Delta United in this pile. I don't have enough experience on those airlines. I guarantee I'm going to have it soon, but I don't know how they would have handled it. So I'm specifically talking about American. So so I've been going back and forth in this email and my last email to them read that essentially my disappointment, and I said you know, and I kind of explained what I've been explaining for the last 25 minutes here of you know, this is disappointing as a company. So, as of and this person's name and I'm going to call this person out a little bit this is Anita Brown, customer Service Relations, american Airlines. So again, I've asked to be elevated to supervisor. That obviously has not happened, and this is as of November 11th 2024. It's got the American Airlines headliner.
Speaker 1:Hello, mr Miller, thank you for your most recent response and I completely understand your disappointment. Do you? Because I've been looking for a apology At this point. I just want an apology, I'm not looking for anything else. And I told them that, while I understand the difficulties you encounter, I must inform you that our position on this matter remains consistent with our existing policies. And I understand that. Anita, I do. I'm not faulting you for it. I'm faulting you for A not being sympathetic at the beginning and B I've asked to be elevated to a customer service agent now multiple times, or supervisor, sorry, because at this point I have a problem with the policy and that's not something she can help me with.
Speaker 1:Okay, back to the email. You are a valued customer and what you think of our service and business is important to us. It really isn't, but okay. By providing feedback, it allows us to see our service through our customers' eyes, which helps us identify the services that are most appealing and improvise, that aren't popular. Rest assured, is our goal to suit the needs and wishes of the largest group of our own customers? No, it's not. As we look to make changes, you can be sure we'll keep your concerns in mind. It would be our pleasure to welcome you on board American Airlines again. Fuck off in the future.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'm not like again, this is not her fault. I get that, but you can tell how I read that and I read that verbatim. This is not like this is literally copy and paste, or AI and Anita is just a name that they gave a computer somewhere, and so I think that that's what's frustrating. Right there is. If you cared, you'd listen. No one's obviously listening on the other side of this, otherwise some of my requests would have been ascertained Maybe not the money, but the explanations. And to this day, no one's admitted that the person in Kansas City was wrong Not a single person.
Speaker 1:And so what is happening with everybody else on this flight? I wish I had gotten some phone numbers, because we had some long conversations with some people about getting hotels, getting reimbursed, all that, all those things right, and this is beyond frustrating. Now, not everybody is a corporate flyer, and there were plenty of them on there. We were talking to a couple of them. They're dealing with other corporate dollars, so it's no skin off their ass. I'm sorry, but it's not their company's re, but it's not like their companies reimbursing, paying for whatever, and so at the end of the day, they're not out a couple hundred bucks, but the people sitting on the very back of the plane that spent every dime to get on this flight to either go on a vacation that they've been saving for for years or, you know, get wherever they need to go to visit family, visit somebody that's sick. You know there's so many different wise people travel. Not everybody has the funds to eat this.
Speaker 1:So, at the end of the day, I'm ashamed of American Airlines. I'm ashamed that I've spent so much money with them. I'm ashamed of that policy and they should be as well. So I understand that this episode was a little bit of a soapbox. I will definitely keep you posted if anything comes from it. I would love it if someone from American Airlines heard this and chose to give me a response. Would love it.
Speaker 1:Between customers that feel like they've been wronged and a corporate policy that doesn't make any sense. I'm sorry, and I know you guys get the rough end of that more times than not, and I don't feel like I was necessarily mean, rude or anything to this person that I've been emailing back and forth with, but at the same time, too, they have to understand that they signed up to work for a company that doesn't actually seem to give a crap per their corporate policy, because at the end of the day, that's what that means to us. So thank you guys so much for listening.
Speaker 1:I want to know if you have some travel stories that are less than desirable. I'm always curious to hear them. I'd love to share some of them and bring a little bit of light, and it's slowly becoming my mission to make travel better, um, because of crap like this. So thank you again so much for listening. If you'd like to learn more about, uh, my wife and I and our businesses and the Miller's in motion brand and all that, you can visit us at millersinmotioncom. Thank you so much and we'll catch you next time.
