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I made a reservation on a website following a link from an online search engine and I honestly believe it was American Airlines -- the link sent me to i11l-services.aa.com which redirects to bookaa.amadeus.com and then to www.amadeus.com and there was a huge American Airlines logo on the page and the right header and footer. I know what Amadeus is and I was not concerned on being the wrong website. But, this registration was a mistake and wanted to cancel it real quick. Here are the known facts:

  1. I got an email from [email protected] saying "Your trip is confirmed and your confirmation number is ... Please note this is not your itinerary and receipt confirmation. An electronic ticket containing flight details and receipt for payment will follow shortly. In the meantime if you would like to add extra options to your trip such as seat assignments and special services please visit 'Manage My Trip' on your local website. Thank you for visiting AA.com®." There is nothing else, no contact information. The confirmation number is a normal six digits-and-letters PNR followed by a five character long also digits-and-letters. I have no idea what the latter is.
  2. The first flight is with British Airways.
  3. www.ba.com sees this reservation using the six charcter PNR but www.aa.com does not.
  4. I called American Airlines on 800-433-7300 who said their reservation numbers are six letters and do not contain numbers. Mine do. They can't find this reservation at all. They suggested calling my credit company because the charge would contain the 13 digits ticket number.
  5. My credit company says there's not even an authorization, much less a charge. (well I guess they will charge when there is a ticket)
  6. British Airways customer service says they see the reservation but not the ticket and that American Airlines made the reservation so they do not have the authorization to cancel
  7. Called the same number again at AA and got to the exact same nowhere.
  8. [email protected] is not a functioning email address. Surprised by this, I checked the original email and it seems to come from mail3.amadeus.net -- but there is also an SPF failure. Googling this email address finds my crosspost to flyertalk and also a Japanese AA FAQ. The Internet Archive has this page archived for five plus years. So at least at some point in time this probably was a functioning email address.

So how do I find who made this reservation and how do I talk to them?

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    I don't think you can reach Amadeus. They may operate the reservation system, but they don't provide end-user support. Since British Airways can see the reservation, are they able to give you the PNR so you can give it to American? It sounds like the reservation hasn't been ticketed yet, so there may be some confusion until that fully happens.
    – Zach Lipton
    Apr 12, 2017 at 23:14
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    Call AA and talk to their online help desk, not the general reservation desk. They maybe able to discover what went wrong on the website.
    – user13044
    Apr 12, 2017 at 23:59
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    Can't your credit card go ahead and block your card? I am able to let my credit card block any transaction for up to about three days when I lose the card but believe it's somewhere in the house.
    – Augustine of Hippo
    Apr 13, 2017 at 0:01
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    Call BA and ask for the AA PNR, then call AA
    – Berwyn
    Apr 13, 2017 at 7:47
  • When you use a Visa or Mastercard card, do you reach out to Visa or Mastercard to fix any issues or reach out to your bank ? So why do you want to reach out to Amadeus ? Reach out to American Airlines and ask them to fix it for you. Even if you reach Amadeus they aren't going to do anything and will instead ask you to contact the airline. I know what Amadeus is then why do you want to reach out to them. I used to work for Amadeus long long ago and I never heard of any passenger contacting Amadeus to fix their problem.
    – DumbCoder
    Apr 13, 2017 at 8:31

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American Airlines uses Sabre for its internal PNRs. Their PNR references are six letter codes with no numbers. They are not related to the Amadeus PNR locators.

What I would do is examine the Amadeus PNR with either Check My Trip or My Flights, by inputting the six digit PNR that Amadeus provided you. Annoyingly, these both now require registration. I prefer My Flights myself but that is up to you.

This should reveal the other record locators, including the Sabre PNR locator. Check My Trip shows it on the detail tab hidden away underneath the sector in question.

If you do not see this, call BA again and ask for the Sabre locator.

With this locator you can return to American Airlines, either the website or by phone, and exercise your right to cancel the ticket (if you have one).

Alternatively, AA should in theory be able to find your record locator with just your name and knowledge of one of the scheduled flights you are confirmed on. I am surprised they did not offer to do this---perhaps it is a privacy thing.

mail3.amadeus.net is a genuine email server used by Amadeus, but not (to my knowledge) by American Airlines. When the BA ticket desk in Amsterdam prepares itineraries for me, updates on the reservation (prior to ticketing) come from an address on that server. I would suspect the "from American Airlines" spoofing is there to reassure customers.

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