American Airlines Passenger Stuck Overnight Couldn’t Get A Hotel Voucher—They Got A Credit Card Pitch Instead

An American Airlines passenger says they couldn’t get a hotel voucher during a flight delay. The chat agent did, however, have something else ready: a pitch to open a Citi credit card, spend $2,500, and earn 50,000 miles. That’s not even as good as the standard offer! American’s stated purpose is “To Care for People on Life’s Journey.” That journey includes a sales presentation while you’re trying to figure out where to sleep. The passenger shared a screenshot of the exchange. It begins with the agent asking, “Does any of that work for you?” Then comes a lengthy offer for the Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select Mastercard: the initial bonus, free checked bags, double miles at restaurants and gas stations, and a request for permission to send a one-time email with more information. American Airlines offered me a credit card deal during a conversation about a delayed flight and their inability to provide a hotel voucher from mildlyinfuriating Always be selling! Always be closing! It’s Glengarry Glen Ross, and the passenger asking for help is the lead. American Pays Agents To Make These Pitches In May 2023, I reported that American’s reservations agents would switch from pitching Avis rental cars to Citi credit cards. At the time, I argued that agents should judge whether the conversation had gone well enough for a customer to be receptive. American’s AAdvantage Cash support materials explain why an agent might make the ask either way: Contact center and Premium Guest Services representatives earn at least $50 for each approved application carrying their referral code. That rises to $100 as they move through annual sales tiers. There are also $100, $300, and $500 bonuses for reaching Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. They earn elite status like we do. There’s also a separate guide to pitching cards during chats, complete with prescribed transitions from talking about travel benefits to offering the card. American Already Knows When To Stop Selling I’ve written for years about credit card announcements that interrupt sleep on early morning flights. As Kevin Williamson once put it, [T]here is the Clockwork Orange sensation of being literally strapped into a seat while someone screams corporate banalities at you on a loudspeaker fifteen inches from your head… It is a “limited-time” offer in the sense that the sun eventually will run out of gas and become a dying star, first engulfing the Earth in fire and then leaving the wreck of the solar system a sterile plane of interstellar cold and utter silence, which will be interrupted only by some addled flight attendant screeching about the limited-time Barclays card offer. The airline’s guidelines at least suggest: Use the approved script, which should take about a minute. Make the announcement only once per flight segment, at cruise before descent, between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. Skip late night and redeye flights. Refrain from offering the card or making announcements during delays, cancellations, diversions, and other events affecting the customer experience. Meanwhile, the pressure to sell keeps growing. On October 15, the flight attendants union objected to American inserting a 15-minute card-sales module into mandatory fourth quarter training. Selling remains voluntary, but management made the training required and offered a $25 qualification reward. They Have A Sales Script For Your Bag Fee, Too American’s airport agent talking points for “Real Time Benefits” identify two moments to pitch: when a customer is about to pay a checked bag fee, and when they’re worried there won’t be overhead bin space for their carry-on. For most instantly approved applicants, the card’s first checked bag benefit and Group 5 boarding can apply to the trip a passenger is already taking. The airline says the boarding group can take roughly seven minutes to update on a digital boarding pass. If the customer has already prepaid for bags, agents are told to shift the pitch to the miles, boarding, and free bags on a future eligible trip. I’ve even proposed plastering aircraft lavatories with credit card ads if attaching revenue to that space would persuade American to give us larger bathrooms since the space becomes monetized rather than deadweight loss. The inflight sales operation has instructions for distributing the commissions fairly among participating flight attendants. Brochures are prefilled with employee numbers, then stacked in a 1–2–3–3–2–1 sequence when three crew members participate. They’ve worked out whose referral code the next passenger gets. A Few Applications Don’t Prove This Is A Good Idea Maybe the number of applications generated from unhappy customers isn’t zero. The agent already has their attention, the sales text is ready to paste, and a small number of approvals can produce real money. But a positive response rate doesn’t establish that the pitch was worth making. You have to count the customers you make angrier, the business they take elsewhere, and whether someone who applies will actually keep and use the card. As I covered in looking at American’s Citi economics, their ambitions depend on acquiring customers, retaining them, and getting their spending. American’s deal announcement projected annual payments approaching $10 billion. They’ve finally come to realize that it matters whether customers like the airline enough to carry it in their wallet. In August, I covered their push for friendlier inflight service to increase card applications. Taking care of passengers makes them more receptive to the pitch. A customer service chat that hasn’t resolved the passenger’s hotel problem starts with.. not that. Topics on this page