Reader mail: Is American Airlines’ fare club worth it?
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Reader Michelle C. writes:
I got this e-mail from American Airlines about a club with American Airlines: “Save $400 on airfare when you join the TrAAvel Perks® program! No inventory restrictions. No hassles…” It costs $134 to join. Is there a catch to this?
As a rule, I am extremely wary of any “club” that requires cash up front and then promises discounts in the future. There are usually numerous strings attached, with lots of fine print. The terms and conditions for this club are no exception.
American promises that its club will save you $400 in airfare. It’s possible, but you’ll have to work for it, and your timing will need to be right.
Yes, you save $100 per ticket, if your stars align. The strings: On two occasions, once right away and once after six months of membership, you get an electronic code that allows you to discount certain tickets by $100 each, for you and a companion. You only get the discount if you’re traveling together and purchase the tickets at the same time. Only buying one ticket for yourself? Then your six-month discount is capped at $100. You can’t get two discount codes up front and use them both within six months. Think of the club as two 6-month memberships stapled together, rather than a 1-year affair.
And not every ticket qualifies. Those tickets need to have a base fare greater than $200 (before taxes), and your travel must take place within six months minus two weeks (!?) of code issuance. Weekend NetsAAver fares don’t count. The price point is plausible, to be sure.
The airline says there are no inventory restrictions, which presumably means that all flights are fare game. But does that mean that all fares are fair game? I’m wary of fare searches like this one, which require you to enter the promo code up front, because of experiences like Tim Winship’s: He got a “welcome back” promo from United, entered the code at the front of his fare search, and the prices ended up being much higher than if he had used no code at all. I’m not saying that American’s club would do the same thing, and I’m hopeful that they don’t, but it’s something to look out for. If you’re using this or ANY other promo code, always be sure to search the site without the promo code, too, to make sure you’re “coupon” isn’t excluding cheaper fares.
Club membership also gives you 2500 frequent flyer miles. That’s worth a little something, especially if your account balance is low, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for that. (”A $72 value” ?? Too high. $40 or $50, maybe, if you’re able to use your miles wisely.)
Finally, a warning: The club auto-renews annually, so you’d need to call and cancel, in order to escape. The rate you’re offered this year isn’t necessarily the rate you’ll pay next year. And as their own rules state, “Benefits may change from time to time.”
There are certainly some people who could benefit from this club. If you’re able to use one set of discount codes for yourself and a companion, you’ve come out a few bucks ahead. But for me, it just requires too much effort for too little return. I’d rather just subscribe to low fare alerts and try to snag low sale fares when they come up. No muss, no fuss. And no calling in to cancel your membership.
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June 26th, 2007 at 2:57 pm |
If you are thinking of joining Traavel Perks, read the fine print carefully. As noted above, the restrictions are such that it isn’t worth it.
In our first six months, we weren’t able to use the companion certificate because the only flights they allowed (with restrictions) left at impossible hours, or were multi-connection flights rather than direct flights.
In the second six months, we used the certificate to book “2 for 1″ on a very small jet (3 people per aisle). Because of ticket class restrictions, the ticket cost over $500, while at the same time you could buy a single ticket on the AA web site for $300. If the program worked as advertised, you should get two tickets for $300. But Traavel Perks claims the tickets are $500 because of the ticket class. In reality, on one of these small jets, each seat is virtually the same (there is no first class, etc.).
So for one year, we paid $130 and “saved” $100.
To make matters worse, the customer service people at Traavel Perks say they aren’t authorized to do anything, because they say they are under American’s supervision. But when I called American they said they weren’t aware of this.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:25 pm |
I’m a Million Miler on AA(Gold for life); I’ve been Platinum since 2000 and member since 1992 (didn’t fly AA for years between 1993-1999) for all but a handful of months. AA tried to sell this to me once, but I declined.
Every single coupon/discount/companion code I’ve ever had from American has proved useless.
This one sounded like no exception and I basically told the Platinum agent that and not to waste my time.
August 10th, 2007 at 8:31 pm |
I have the AA advantage program with american airlines. I am trying to go to france and if I use my “saved” miles I will have to pay $400 for a ticket plus taxes. But I am just short on miles and I’ll have to buy 10k miles with will cost me an extra $250.00 and I will have to travel for 24 hours from US to paris stopping in England. If I buy straight .I will pay 800 and I will be in Paris in 6 hours. can you believe this c r a p?
November 14th, 2007 at 8:10 pm |
The program looks good but has a lot of loop holes. If you’re a “fine print” scanner, beware of American’s play on words. Instead of using the commonly know “blackout dates” term, they use “embargo dates” for the dates the travel vouchers can not be used. Dates that include the two months surround Thansgiving and Christmas! But they do give you 30 days to cancel the membership if you haven’t used any of the perks. I receieved a little attitude when I called to cancel mine! But they did cancel it. Now for the WORST part of the program..they must sell your email address because within hours of joining (you have to give AA your email address to join) I had almost a 600% increase in junk email! Even after I cancelled I’m still receiving junk email. Today alone I received 90! Yesterday it was 65! And these are the ones that are getting passed my spam filters. My trash is growing by leaps and bounds. Just for the hassle alone I encourage everyone to avoid this “perk” because it’s just given me one headache after another!