Add AA to the List of No More Change Fees - At Least for Members

This is the worst run airlines in the united states. They are going going to get better until they start they start empowering their ticket counter agents, gate agents, and phone agents to be able to solve common sense problems.

Warning: below is a horror story from traveling American Airlines
I recently had a trip where my original flight was canceled due to AA changing their schedules relating to the pandemic. This was three weeks out and seemed reasonable for what was going on in the world. They initially rebooked me on a later flight that would not get me to my destination in time for the reason I was going. I called and the ticket agent rebooked both my girlfriend and I on the last flight the night before. This was free as the cancellation was AA's decision.

24 hours before the flight my girlfriend was able to check in and I was not, instead it said I had to go to a ticket counter agent to check in. Upon arriving, the ticket counter agent started looking into the problem. They told me that my ticket was never finalized, even though I had a confirmation number for the flight and a record locator. Then they told me that I could not be scheduled on the flight because for a cancellation from AA, I was not eligible to change to a different day (the night before). They told me that I could get on the flight if I paid an additional $600 (roughly 2.5 times what I initially paid.). After explaining my situation and telling him that it was AA that cancelled the flight and showing him the email I had received, and explaining that my girlfriend had the exact same situation and her ticket is valid, he said he was escalate to the help desk.

Speaking to the help desk they went through the same items (not eligible for this flight, have to pay $600). The ticket counter agent agreed with me that there is an error and that I should be on the flight, but he had no way to override the system. The help desk person was less interested in helping solve the problem than getting off the phone. During this time my girlfriend had already gone through security and got to the gate. I called her and told her that they wont let me through and are booking me for the next day, she became hysterical and started crying. The gate agent came to figure out what was wrong and upon hearing her story realized that it was not correct. He got on the computer and and saw my fair, but was not able to fix the issue, calling the ticket counter agent I was at, he was told that there was nothing they could do.

At the ticket counter at this point time was starting to get tight so I asked what can we do about escalating this issue. The counter agent said there was no possible escalation. At this point my girlfriend contacted her friend who works at AA who works in schedule management for the agents. This lady called my cellphone and asked to me to pass my phone to the agent. She evidently gave him the escalation procedures so he called a manager. Finally, after hear the story the manager approved an override and which allowed them to assign a ticket to my account. I say this very specifically because, once they assigned me the ticket and hung up with the manager, the agent started to check me in and realized he couldn't because we were within 30 minutes of the flight. He again told me that I could not make the flight and I would have to rebook to the next day. I was completely taken aback, as he had just received approval to get me on the flight. Asking him to please escalate again, he was able to get the override again and got me a ticket.

I made the flight about 5 minutes before they had to close to the door, but I was definitely the last person on the flight. Once, I got on the flight I immediately became livid. There were multiple empty seats that were not covid/social distancing related that they could have easily given me, both at my fare and at fares higher than mine. I hope I am never in a situation where I have to fly american again, its Southwest from here on out. I had an additional terrible time coming back on the same trip with a diverted flight that caused us to stay they night in shreveport. There was zero communication on that from AA. The agents, pilots, and crew could not tell us when the plane would leave again or if we had to book a new flight, it was an equally terrible situation.

tl;dr - Flying southwest from now on