Anyone else having a hard time getting through to American?

[Cheburashka]

I called American Airlines about 6 hours ago, and was told my wait would be over 4 hours, and that I could schedule a callback rather than wait on hold. Needless to say I scheduled the callback, but it's been 6 hours & no callback. I called them back, and the machine told me that my estimated remaining time to receive the existing callback was "over 4 hours from now".

Now I've called again from another phone and am waiting on an indefinite hold. I've never had such a ridiculous wait with American, and that includes multiple calls I've made since the pandemic started, so it can't just be blamed on Covid. Anyone know what's going on? Do they truly keep callbackers in their place in line, or do the people who wait on hold get helped first?

ETA: For resolution read Post #10.

 

[Runnsally]

I called American Airlines about 6 hours ago, and was told my wait would be over 4 hours, and that I could schedule a callback rather than wait on hold. Needless to say I scheduled the callback, but it's been 6 hours & no callback. I called them back, and the machine told me that my estimated remaining time to receive the existing callback was "over 4 hours from now".

Now I've called again from another phone and am waiting on an indefinite hold. I've never had such a ridiculous wait with American, and that includes multiple calls I've made since the pandemic started, so it can't just be blamed on Covid. Anyone know what's going on? Do they truly keep callbackers in their place in line, or do the people who wait on hold get helped first?

AA is hopelessly understaffed. Try a direct message through twitter…

 

[Cheburashka]

AA is hopelessly understaffed. Try a direct message through twitter…

No Twitter account and don't want to create one just to enable American. I really don't get it. I've called them before in the past year and have not had such a crazy wait. Just wondered if something identifiable was going on that caused this.

 

[FCDub]

Many companies, especially travel companies, are understaffed, like a PP said.

If my options were take 3 minutes to create a Twitter account and get a response to my issue within like 30 minutes, or sit around for 6 hours and wait for a call back ... I pick the former 100 times out of 100. Just this week, I had an issue I needed help with via Southwest. Long phone wait, but an agent sorted me in literally 8 minutes over Twitter. No need to make it purposely harder on yourself, OP!

 

[Cheburashka]

Many companies, especially travel companies, are understaffed, like a PP said.

If my options were take 3 minutes to create a Twitter account and get a response to my issue within like 30 minutes, or sit around for 6 hours and wait for a call back ... I pick the former 100 times out of 100. Just this week, I had an issue I needed help with via Southwest. Long phone wait, but an agent sorted me in literally 8 minutes over Twitter. No need to make it purposely harder on yourself, OP!

So they can change your flights over Twitter? That's what I need. Didn't think it could be done on Twitter.

 

[martikus]

Ive had luck asking for a callback in morning (before 9am). I agree they are ridiculous. The first time I got a 3am callback (called about 7pm). So now I only do morning. We had a complicated redemption with a minor that required a human. Soooo frustrating.

 

[Runnsally]

So they can change your flights over Twitter? That's what I need. Didn't think it could be done on Twitter.

Yes. I’ve been surprised how much they will/can do over Twitter.

 

[Cheburashka]

Yes. I’ve been surprised how much they will/can do over Twitter.

Okay I shared a message through Twitter. Let's see if they get back to me. Is there a specific message or amount of information you're supposed to share to get their attention? I'm afraid to put my flight confirmation out in the public arena.

It's been 8 hours, btw. And when I check back in they do have my callback in the queue and still say that the remaining time is over 4 hours. It's almost midnight here.

 

[Cheburashka]

Many companies, especially travel companies, are understaffed, like a PP said.

If my options were take 3 minutes to create a Twitter account and get a response to my issue within like 30 minutes, or sit around for 6 hours and wait for a call back ... I pick the former 100 times out of 100. Just this week, I had an issue I needed help with via Southwest. Long phone wait, but an agent sorted me in literally 8 minutes over Twitter. No need to make it purposely harder on yourself, OP!

I got set up on Twitter and messaged them using the correct handle, with no response so far.

 

[Cheburashka]

After 3 and 1/2 hours, the call that I had on hold went through (this was the call I placed from a different phone after 6 hours of waiting for a callback). The phone agent was very helpful, but AA needs to hire a lot more of them so that customers don't have to endure these ridiculous waits.

After working out the flight changes over the phone, I used my other phone to call AA & check on the status of the callback. It was still in the queue, and said the remaining time for my callback was "greater than 4 hours". That was over 9 hours after I requested the callback.

During this I did contact American via Twitter & Facebook but got no response. The moral of this story seems to be that waiting on hold is the way to go, not letting them do a callback. 3 and 1/2 hours with a response (hold) vs. 9 hours with no end in sight (callback). I hope that info helps someone else. From the comments on their Facebook page it seems this is typical for American lately.

 

[VeronicaZS]

They just cancelled all flights from DCA to MCO for tomorrow with less than 24 hours notice and booked me for Sunday. I managed to get through but something is clearly going on.

 

[Cheburashka]

They just cancelled all flights from DCA to MCO for tomorrow with less than 24 hours notice and booked me for Sunday. I managed to get through but something is clearly going on.

My goodness! The reason I had to book American is that JetBlue just completely ended all service between my city and Orlando, so our February JetBlue flights were cancelled, causing me to need to reschedule the February 2022 cruise to December 2021 so that I could use AA credits to book a flight.

Come on, airlines. Start treating customers like people. This is ridiculous.

 

[maxiesmom]

If it is something they can take care of at the airport, do that if it is close by. I have a coworker who went that route, and she was there and home within an hour.

 

[Keacc]

I requested a call back and they said it would be 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours. I got the call back at 4 1/4 hours but still waited for a live person another 20 minutes. I booked a flight using credits. The agent said that she would have to put me on hold for 2-3 minutes. 14 minutes later she came back and finished the reservation. Sooo many people using credits because of covid has really messed things up.

 

[spiders]

AA has experienced sick outs and other issues. They cancelled nearly 200 flights today and 100 more for tomorrow. They anticipate canceling 50-60 each day for the remaining of the month, mostly affecting 737 & A320 operations.

 

[rj9555]

AA has experienced sick outs and other issues. They cancelled nearly 200 flights today and 100 more for tomorrow. They anticipate canceling 50-60 each day for the remaining of the month, mostly affecting 737 & A320 operations.

And from what I've read, they will probably be cancelling 50 per day through July as well.

 

[Cheburashka]

I requested a call back and they said it would be 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours. I got the call back at 4 1/4 hours but still waited for a live person another 20 minutes. I booked a flight using credits. The agent said that she would have to put me on hold for 2-3 minutes. 14 minutes later she came back and finished the reservation. Sooo many people using credits because of covid has really messed things up.

Given the resulting customer service drain & bad PR it's causing, if they would just refund people's money instead of giving credits, that might be more cost-efficient for them in the end...

 

[Cheburashka]

If it is something they can take care of at the airport, do that if it is close by. I have a coworker who went that route, and she was there and home within an hour.

What can they do at the airport? I don't know because I've never tried it. Can they change a future reservation using credits?

 

[PatMcDuck]

My callback last week came 19 hours later, at 3 AM!! I was 1/2 asleep and hung up. Then they called again at 3:10. I answered promts to cancel that time. I found a solution using the online process, email. (a refund). It came fast, in a couple days.

 

[smadath]

They just cancelled all flights from DCA to MCO for tomorrow with less than 24 hours notice and booked me for Sunday. I managed to get through but something is clearly going on.

This is what's going on: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ame...s-amid-staffing-maintenance/story?id=78388482