I arrived at the airport with my husband and 4 month old son. We wait on line (45 mins) and check in our luggage. They did not have a bag to put our car seat in, so we knew right there it was going to be a rough day.
We get to our gate at 2:00 and wait patiently. Our flt is delayed 2-3 times before it's canceled. We immediately ask when the next flt is. The man at the boarding gate reserves us 2 seats on the 12:45 Mon flt (writing the confirmation #'s on our boarding pass) stating there are no other flts Sun & then sends us to baggage to get our bags.
Along the way I stop at the courtesy phone & ask if there are any other flts either to LaGuardia, or JFK in which Brad (reservation rep) tells me there is a flt at 10:05PM Sunday to EWR which has not been canceled. He reserves 2 seats for me & states no confirmation # is needed, just my boarding pass and ID.
We get to baggage & wait an hour online, & find out that our baggage won't be down for another hr. It's now almost 6 I've finished all the extra formula I brought in my carry on & my son is crying from hunger. My husband informs them that it's very important we get our luggage since all his food is in our suitcase. The woman says she'll send security to get it & to wait patiently. The people at the counter said that all the luggage from our flight went out already and would be waiting for us at EWR.
The 800 rep on the cell phone told us that was impossible since all the flts were canceled. We kept calm and watched as a man throws a fit about his luggage and the baggage reps find it for him immediately. We continue to wait patiently with a crying baby, & are informed that our luggage is in lock down and we won't be receiving it.
It's past 7 & flts are still being canceled. I was worried about our 10:05 flight being canceled and asked how I would go about getting a hotel room. The Amer rep stated I had to write a letter to customer service in order to get my room paid for. I decided with all the commotion, I had better reserve a room before there weren't any left. We get to the hotel, and call the 800 number to find out if our flt would leave ontime and for some reason my husband was not scheduled on that flight. The flt was full & they could not get him on that flt, so they scheduled us to be on the 12:45 flt Monday again.
They then transferred us to luggage in which the wait was 105 minutes!!! We waited and when we finally got through and gave them our baggage claim number, we were told they have no records of us even checking our bags in. I am livid at this point. What is the point of baggage claim tickets? When we get to the airport on Monday, it only took 30 minutes to find our that our flight was ontime my husband and I were not seated together, because somehow he did not have a reservation (even though we had the confirmation number) and our luggage was at Newark being held in a secure spot by Baggage Claim.
After switching gates 4-5 times we finally got on the plane which was delayed more than 2 hours. The stewardess informed me that she could not help us to sit together, and that we would have to work it out on our own. We did, when we finally arrived at Newark it was almost 5, the pilot made great time, but when we get to baggage claim, there were hundreds of bags just thrown all around the place, no security, noone checking claim tickets, it was awful.
When we finally found our luggage, and opened it up, there were all sorts of things missing. When we tried to talk to someone about it they told us to write to customer service.By this point we were so tired, we just wanted to get home. I know not all of this was American Airlines fault, although I do think they handled the situation very poorly, and I do not think I will be flying with them again.
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