Customer Service and American Airlines

This whole rant starts with lost bags in Peru... Now if you have ever traveled to a 3rd world country you know the trip getting there is a journey. My wife and I left on Christmas day and headed to Peru with a connection in Miami. We left on time, but for whatever reason, we had to sprint to make our connection which left us without our baggage when we landed in Peru. All we wanted to do was land, get our bags, get to the hotel and shower and sleep. But noooooo.... we have to wait in line with all the other Boston to Miami customers who were missing bags, explain in English to Spanish employees at American all the details on their report such that we could get our bags at some point. I thought they were required to give you at least an hour and a half on international connections? What is up with that? The next issue came about 18 days later. My wife and I brought her niece and nephew back to the states with us from Peru. They were then going to go home with my wife's mom who goes to Peru every year. They all speak Spanish and get a little nervous when it comes to traveling. I brought my mother-in-law and the kids to the airport to see them on their way. I remember a few years ago, I had seen a small child traveling and his mom had asked for a "pass" to walk the child down to his gate and the lady behind the airline counter gave the woman a "pass" to go through security and make sure the child (12 yrs. old) got on the plane okay. I decided to try to use this to help my mother-in-law, the children and all their carry on bags for the long journey. The woman at the American Airlines counter in Boston wouldn't give me a pass to walk them to the gate. Well, sure enough, 4 hours later I got a call from my mother-in-law saying that "...they were unable to get on the plane." The reason, they didn't have seats together, so in an effort by my mother-in-law to get them together on the plane, she gave the gate agent her tickets and was asked to sit down and wait. She, not knowing, didn't realize, as the plane was boarding and she didn't have her tickets, to approach the gate agent. They shut the door and their they sat. Of course my mother-in-law was very upset and made a stink. Well, now due to inclement weather, they were unable to get out for 3 more days. Poor customer service on their part cost to them, 3 round trip international tickets plus food and this blog about how bad American Airlines customer service is and is getting. Next, it is now April and my wife and I are going to travel to Phoenix. My wife and I love to travel and making it as easy as possible is kind of a challenge for us. This trip we decide to bring a small carry on each for personal items and one bag for our clothes (to check) to save space and make it easier for us. The bag was 7 pounds over the 50 lb limit and so they charged us $25, each way. But we only brought one bag, doesn't anyone see the irony with this? I don't get it. How about a $25 reimbursement (each way) for making the baggage handling easier for them? And to top it off, the guy behind the desk was rude when I tried to ask, "Why again is there a charge?", "When were we notified that this was taking effect?" I mean, I am a Gold traveler (have been Platinum) with American and I didn't get the memo. Lastly, and this is the real killer. This past weekend my wife gets an e-vite for a friend who is having a wedding in Corpus Christie, Texas in July. So, me being the tech savvy shopper, I hop on the internet (Memorial weekend) to try to take advantage of the 125,000 frequent flyer miles I have with American to book our free flight. As I am trying to book my reservations, I am trying to get to the screen that lists the available flights on the give date that I want to travel and I keep getting a message that says "Request Timed Out". This only means one thing; their servers are swamped on this holiday weekend. On top of that, they tell me when I call to try to book my tickets that if I don't use the internet, that it will cost me $5 per ticket. So, I finally get through and I am in the process of booking my tickets when I tell the woman that I am not going to pay the $5 per ticket because I tried to use the internet, yet their site cannot handle my request. The woman proceeds to tell me that she is sorry and has to transfer met to "Technical Support" then in order to try to understand the problem but she is not authorized to wave the $5. I ask to speak to her supervisor and after another 10 minutes of explaining, she too tells me that she cannot wave the $5 and I have to talk to Technical Support. I say, "okay, but only under one condition, that they can fix my internet issue and wave the $5." They say, they can, so I let them transfer me. After working with the technician for about 20 minutes, I have had it. She starts going to the ...I am not an technically savvy person so I will start asking dumb questions sheet... just to bug me. She starts to ask questions such as, am I using a wireless device. I tell her that I have made hundreds of reservations sitting in this exact same spot, with the exact same computer with the same damn IP address (yes, that is right, I said IP address, I am a technical person) and that being on a wireless device doesn't matter. I then ask to speak to her supervisor to which she tells me that they can't do that but one can call me back in an hour. I get a call back in one hour from someone who starts asking all the same questions. I tell the manager that American needs to start at this moment providing good customer service, forego the 10 bucks, make my reservation and move on. The woman says okay, but since she can access the internet (mind you in the same building where the datacenter is) she can't wave the $10. I give up and say "fine", lets just book the flight. I tell her that not waving the $10 is going to cost her a letter to the travel editor at the Boston Globe, NY Times and anyone else that will listen and she doesn't seem to care. Now I am in the process of booking my tickets when she tells me, she can get me to Corpus Christie on the day I want to go, but can't get me home until 3 days after I need to come home using frequent flyer miles, unless that is, of course, I want to use 50,000 miles per trip... You have to be kidding me..... all that for this? Now, this last part I believe is becoming a larger issue. The Airlines can't afford to give up any free seats these days so they are screwing their customers by saying they don't have seats when in fact they just can't give as many away. It's too bad really.