Earlier this week there were headlines about the Biden administration passing a consumer protection law that, among other things, forced airlines to provide refunds in the case of cancellations. Some conservative politicians, like Ted Cruz,  didn’t seem to like this, which has me flummoxed.

I have a recent example of the abuse some airlines inflict on their passengers. Last month I had a flight scheduled from San Diego to Indianapolis. I had the flight booked months before, and the day of travel seemed to be a particularly bad-weather day back east. My flight was supposed to leave at around 10:00am. I had a layover of 90 minutes in Dallas, which is just the right amount of time. The incoming flight was delayed, so my departure was also delayed. Several times, each time by 30 minutes, and eventually I would get to Dallas after the connecting flight’s departure.

The gate agents were busy. I tried to rebook online, but the system didn’t work. I had to wait some 45 minutes in the priority line – no less – before I got to the front. It turned out there was no way for me to get to Indianapolis that day. I was prepared for that eventuality and had decided I’d cancel the trip. There was no point in me going if I didn’t make it there that day.

The agent gave me a paper voucher with a ticket number written on it and told me I had to go to aa.com/refunds to redeem it. This is what it looked like:

When I got home I went to the site, but it didn’t find my ticket. I saved it until I had to book another flight. That was this morning.

My flight today was over $800, so I wanted to apply the flight credit of $432.20 when I tried to make the payment.

Please note that there is no way to look up your existing flight credits when making a payment. You have to type it in. I didn’t have my paper ticket in my hand so I couldn’t do it.

I opened up another browser window, logged into my account a second time, found the flight credits page, and searched there:

Now it told me it couldn’t find it.

You get the idea. American Airlines goes out of its way to make it nearly impossible to claim refunds. I happened to be at my desk, and I have a drawer where I keep such papers. I tried to type the ticket number into the payment site, and it still would not accept it.

So I called the airline. Here is the call log I kept:As you can see, I had to wait about 5 minutes of the robot telling me I should be going to aa.com to work out my problems. Eventually I got an agent, and when I explained my issue, she put me on hold for 12 minutes. Then she came back and told me that she had found the ticket and was working on the credit. Three minutes later, after some clicking and switching where I was afraid it would hang up on me, another agent came on and I had to explain the whole thing again. That agent put me on hold for 10 minutes and told me they had worked it out, but then it took another 20 minutes on hold before she came back with a properly booked ticket.

All in all, I spent 47 minutes on hold listening to the robot drone on and on about how important their customers were to them. I spent about 10 minutes actually talking to two human operators.

I got my refund, and I got my ticket. Between trying it online myself, and getting help, it took about an hour and a half out of my day today to buy a ticket, which should be a 3-minute job.

I am a life-time Platinum member with American Airlines. I have flown almost 3 million miles with that airline alone. I know how the system works.  I have lots of experience with adverse travel situations. How is a less-savvy traveler going to cope with this? It’s very easy to forget about the travel credit after a few months. It’s also easy to throw up your hands and give up – and the airline wins.

I for one thank my government for putting the squeeze on airlines. If they cancel my flight, and I don’t rebook, my money should go back to my credit card that day.

Amazon can do it.

American Airlines can do it, too.

Now they have to.