I just got off the phone with American. I booked directly through American in April for a trip from Thanksgiving Day through December 3rd. Their original response was to give us credit for flights anywhere up to one year from our original booking date. She did not mention the option of travel to St Maarten with no fees through September 30th, 2018 that is stated on their website. About 2 weeks ago we received notification that our flights had changed, leaving almost 5 hours earlier. It looks like they probably have moved everybody to the 12:05 flight out of Miami since that is the only flight for awhile.
I told her the credit was unacceptable, but that was going nowhere until I asked for a refund based on the time change. She checked with a supervisor on that and about 10 more minutes on the phone and I had a full refund back to the credit card I booked with.