American Airlines AA Mileage Account Ripoff Fort Worth TX

Bought a $1,000 ticket last February for a flight in March. Right before departure American cancelled due to Covid.

Yesterday (December 2) I got concerned that -- with the pandemic resurging -- my $1,000 credit might expire before I could use it. But when I looked up my AA account, surprise! It had a mileage balance of zero. My miles had expired due to non-use. 

I called AA to reinstate them. No way. The supervisor said you only earn miles when you fly. It didn't matter that I had paid for a qualifiying flight, they held my money for 10 months, and they -- not me --  had cancelled.

I asked how many miles were vaporized. He said when miles expire, they "purge" all records of the account from the beginning. In my case that's more than 20 years. So they can't/won't tell me how many miles went poof. 

I guess the cost of storing those computer bits must be unbearably high. In other words, I think they're lying. Nobody deletes valuable customer behavior data.

I figure they stole about 100,000 miles from me. 

When I complained, the supervisor said there were other ways I could have earned miles to avoid expiration. Sure, if I had known they'd delete my miles after they cancelled my flight. 

I told the supervisor that if they don't reinstate my miles, I will "purge" American from all my future flights and tell everyuone I know (and don't know) about their position. You're reading this story because he refused.