My time to vent.
I agree 100% AA sucks. It has gotten much worse since the merger.
Unfortunately if you are trying to fly from west coast ( LA for us) to the Caribbean in 1 day with relatively reasonable connection, they have you by the B... ( especially for the return leg).
We usually take the red eye from LA, getting to the Caribbean in early afternoon and leave with their early AM departure getting back to LA in early evening.

Pat can relate to this:
Since the merger, there has at least monthly changes to our flight. (sometimes 2-3x/ month). We usually buy our tickets at least 6 months ahead. This has happen to us every time for the past 4 years in a row. In the process we have lost our premium seats that we paid extra for. Especially for the last leg of our trip from MIA to LAX that departs at 2 PM. This has gotten so bad for the past couple of years that I have been checking my itinerary on weekly basis to stay ahead of their unannounced changes. I have had to adjust our seats/ flight several times to keep up with them. Now even that does not work any more. I bought our April SXM 4 tickets, back in May of last year. I got a good price on 1st/ business class so I bought it quickly. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Groovin.gif" alt="" /> They have changed the flight number/ plane type several times <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/smashpc.gif" alt="" />, however I was able to adjust until Christmas time. For my Christmas present, They canceled my MIA>> LAX 1:50 flight. They replaced it with a flight with the exact same plane/ equipment now leaving at 1:45. ( they put the other couple we are traveling with on this flight.) But they put us on a later flight with an additional 4 hour layover. Also our flight from SXM now arrives an hour earlier as well. So all of sudden I have an additional 5 hour layover in MIA for total of 7.25 hour layover. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/smashpc.gif" alt="" /> It takes less time for me to fly from anywhere in Europe to LAX than what they put me on . I called several times, talk to multiple agent and supervisor. They told me that now they did not have any first class seats available on the newly created 1:45 flight. (although I was the first person buying the tickets in May, because the entire first class was open back then and I could choose any seats, and had 4 confirmed seats and it was exact plane type). They could not explain that. Although one agent told me they might have previously sold more first class tickets that they had seats, and when the flight canceled and recreated on the different flight number, other passengers with higher status than me might have been assigned the 1st class seats by the computer system. My choices were to have 7.25 hour layover in MIA or voluntary downgrade myself in order to get on the 1:45 flight which I ended up doing. ( the sad part is they pretended they were doing me a huge favor by assigning me to main cabin extra seats rather than plain economy. Although I had first class tickets <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />)

These days I try my hardest to avoid AA. But the return portion is nearly impossible. AA has early morning flight from most Caribbean destination connecting through MIA and getting me back to LAX around 4:30 PM. Non of the other airline offer this. ( the best they can do is get me back to LA around 1 AM. Since I have kids in school and try to stay in the islands as long as possible, this is Not an option). I have explored to get 2 separate 1 way tickets, which I might do in the near future. But my biggest problem with AA is the return portion.


I have a life time 850+K miles with AA, but I still cancelled my AA Citi CC back in 2011, after being unable to book anything with my FF miles on their site for 5 years for the flights I was interested in (except using the super expensive option of any time miles). I got the Card again in late 2012 when they came up with their new CITI AA card that had few perks . At the launch of the new card, they offered priority check in and boarding and 1 free checked bag,... Although I knew I could not use the miles, I got it for the perks and figured it would pay for itself if I just use it for my AA tickets. However within a few months the priority boarding became Group 1 boarding , And 2.5 years ago free checked bag, became free check bag for domestic flights only. Needless to say I canceled the card shortly after.

This past summer time for our Aruba trip, I took United from Orange County>>Newark>> AUA>> Houston>>OC and it was very nice.