How to redeem an American Airlines travel voucher

Thank you for explaining this paper ticket process. It’s very archaic and conveniently NOT explained by American on any of their sites, literature. I am taking care of this for my mom and can’t believe they make people go through this process, when an eVoucher would have been so much easier. Hello 1975!

I have had them before & had to call to finalize my reservations. I used a $400 voucher a few months back to pay towards mine & hubby’s reservations fro SeaTac to The British Virgin Islands. I couldn’t combine it with an e-voucher I had for $100 they gave me when I called from the airport & complained that my delay was making me miss my connection & causing me to get home super late. I gave that voucher number to my mom by phone. She called & used it to make reservations to visit my brother. No problems. I have a $500 voucher I need to book in the next few months that hubby got for giving up his seat on a hop from Phoenix to YUMA. They also paid for a night at the Hyatt till his flight the next morning.

I followed the advice above and put my reservation on hold then went straight to the American ticket counter at my nearby airport. Other than a glitch with their new software, they processed it through their old system and I got my ticket in <30 min. Definitely the way to do it! Thanks for the advice!

So I have 2 paper vouchers that expire Jan12/18.
Do I have to travel before that date or just book the flight before that date?
Also, can they be used for someone else ?
I have seen differing comments on these questions.

I had to phone AA again twice to complete redemption of vouchers. In total I spent almost 3 hours on the phone !

A few weeks ago, American asked 14 folks to volunteer to be bumped off a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles for $1000 in voucher credit. I’m one of those kats who likes to be at his destination pronto and not bumble around wasting time but my friend talked me into staying behind and getting the voucher. So glad I did.

Luckily, they quickly put me on a flight to Arizona that night and I was in LA the next day anyway.

This morning, I booked a flight to Charlotte for the end of March and then put it on hold using my American Airlines account. Consequently, I drove to LAX, walked up to a cashier at Terminal 4 (American) in the ticketing area and within 15 minutes, they had transferred my voucher to the ticket I put on hold.

Voila! Done.

Thank goodness I did not have to mail it in. Now, what do I do with this leftover $190? 🙂

NOTES: I had everything on my iPhone ready to go. American Airlines app (opened). Ticket Locator ID. Driver’s License. Confirmation of my travel dates and times. This helps to speed along the process.

Also, before I met with the ticketing folks, my ticket in the app had a “HOLD” status on it. After they completed the transaction, I closed the American Airlines app, reopened it and checked the status of my ticket again. No “HOLD” status anymore. Upon closer inspection, it now actually said, “Ticketed”. Boom!

Thank you very much for writing this! I realize this is an old post, but the info is still valid. American has no info on their website, so this is a much needed reference.

I have just started the process of redeeming a $1000 paper voucher. I opted for the mail in option since my airport is a 1hr drive.

Here is my process so far;
1. Found flights on AA.com and put them on hold
2. Called American reservations hotline. Customer service rep confirmed my choices and walked me through the process of mailing in the voucher. Entire time on phone was 27 minutes
3. I photocopied AND took a picture of the voucher. I’ll be sending it in via certified mail with departure date written under my return address and a detailed list of flight and passenger info included on a sheet inserted with the voucher.

I’ll re-post and let you know long it takes to get my tickets.

I still have a $440 balance and interestingly the CS rep told me they will issue a new voucher for that amount and it will be good for 12 months from issue date NOT from date of the original voucher. Essentially it re-starts the 12 month clock on the balance. This is a really great way to extend out a voucher if you can’t use the whole amount!

Cheers!

Thanks to the helpful information in this post, redeeming a voucher was a pretty painless process for us. We placed our flight reservation for 2 tickets on hold and drove 10 minutes to our regional airport (think small and not busy). The first question the rep asked when we told her we wanted to redeem a voucher was if we already had a reservation on hold. She pulled it up, made a call for instructions on how to do it (she hadn’t done it in awhile), and my husband’s ticket was taken care of within 10 minutes (voucher + extra cash paid). She told me if I paid for my ticket in person I would be assessed a $35 fee (international travel) that could be avoided by paying online. And that’s the only small hitch I want to alert others to. When I went home to pay for my ticket, I wasn’t able to on the original reservation. The system showed it as ticketed and wouldn’t accept payment. I did have to call AA and they needed to split the reservation into 2 (his, already paid for, and mine, to pay). There was a glitch in the system while doing that and they ended up taking my payment over the phone & waiving the $35 fee. So my tip is this: if two people will be traveling and one of them will be redeeming a voucher, make a separate hold for each person so the non-voucher ticket can be easily paid for online afterwards. Despite the call to AA, it was pretty easy. And a huge blessing.

After redeeming such a voucher at the airport after holding it online, does the normal trip record locator/confirmation and receipt show up on the AA account as normal? e.g. I would still be able to log in online and print a PDF of the receipt to submit for expense purposes?

My family has an American Airlines flight to Switzerland the beginning of June 2020. We are considering cancelling the trip due to all the quarantines/virus. Our premium economy tickets (3 of them) are non-refundable (bought 12/7/2019). As I understand, we can change these three tickets for a really cheap flight in the US (the cheapest I can find) for a fee, and the airline will issue us a voucher for the Cost of the premium economy ticket minus the cheap flight ticket. Then we can use this voucher to book a flight for Europe next summer, as we want to do the same trip next year. Will this work? IAny feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank You.