On one of my first trips on American, I had an issue and was sent a $75 voucher to use against future travel. I didn’t end up using it, as they have a 12 month expiry, so I guess it is a good way of them making me feel like a valued customer without actually costing them anything more than the price of postage.

On my trip from Manchester to Philadelphia  when the in-flight entertainment wasn’t working, I used the in-flight wifi to log a complaint and was given a $200 transportation voucher which I said at the time I probably wouldn’t use.

Fast forward to this time last year (which highlights to me how lax I have been in keeping the blog up to date!) and I found myself with a trip from Bucharest to Phoenix and a week in the US. I love Vegas, and was keen to go back, so decided that I could use the voucher to fly from Phoenix to Las Vegas. A First class seat was about $200 more than economy, so the voucher was perfect!

To book, you just go to the American site and select the flights you want.

After entering the passenger details, you can select to hold the flights, for free, for up to 24 hours. Having done this, I called up the ticketing team to pay for the flights. I told them that I had a voucher to use and gave the agent the details. This is where it goes old school. You are given an address to send the voucher off to – in the UK it is somewhere in Liverpool. You have to include your booking locator and other details. Once it arrives at their offices, the value of the voucher is deducted from the cost and the remainder of the balance is taken from the credit card you gave the agent on the phone.

It is pretty simple, but it would be great if there was a way that you could skip the faff of having to send it off somewhere. This can cause problems, as it did for Lucky of One Mile at a Time blog fame, when his voucher was lost in the post. Best to send it registered post to be sure it arrives!

I was pleased that I was able to use the voucher this time and will be sure to try my hardest to make use of any more that might be coming my way!