Help from Texas

This doesn't make any sense to me, sorry. They DID offer to put you
on the next available flight, which happened to be Saturday. You
chose the refund. Why WOULDN'T they refund you the whole trip? It
sounds like you misunderstood them, and were under the assumption that
your trip back home was still booked with AA. Honestly you should
have known it wasn't when they refunded you for both ways.
I think perhaps Continental may owe you a refund for the down grade in
seats- at least for you, since you were the one who had to move.
Sorry but I don't see where AA owes you anything. They followed their
policy of offering the next available flight or a full refund.

The AA website indicates that in the case of delays and cancellations,
they will put passengers on the next AA flight with available seats;
and that if the cancellation or delay is due to problems within their
control and the passengers don't get to their destinations on the same
day that they were supposed to the airline will provide overnight
accommodations if any are available.

In other words, although they didn't give you what you and I think
they ought to have given you in the face of the initial cancellation,
they gave you what they agreed to give you. As a result, I doubt you
are going to get the tickets you are asking for.

I do not, however, think it is reasonable that they canceled the
return portion of your trip because you skipped the first flight -- I
think they ought to have refunded you the cost of a one-way ticket,
and let you keep the return ticket at a significantly reduced cost to
you. And had they done that, I would not be as upset about your
having to find another airline to get you to Cancun as I am.

Back to the first flight: if the cancellation was due to weather, you
probably had no chance of a good outcome. If it was due to a
maintenance issue or something, your best chance would probably have
been to demand a hotel room (even if you have a perfectly good house a
few miles from the airport) and meal vouchers and long-distance phone
cards to contact your hotel in Mexico and anything else you could
think of, even though you wouldn't be entitled to all of that. I
would bet that the passengers who are going to cost the most money and
aggravation are the ones most likely to get any standby seats that
show up, the first seats on the next flight with available seating,
and tickets on other carriers. People who say, "Oh, all right, give
me my money back and I'll go try to figure something out for myself"
are not a priority because they are easily and cheaply gotten rid of;
the squeaky wheel, as people say, gets the grease. (Yes, I know I'm
recommending a course of action that I deplore. I don't think
front-line employees ought to have to deal with passengers who have to
be obnoxious in order not to have their vacations ruined. But I also
don't think passengers ought to have to pay an extra $1450 because
AA's flights for the next 2 days are full.)

I do hope that your vacation was the best it possibly could be given
the way it started. I hope AA gives you something to make up for the
mess. I hope that you don't hae to wait another 10 years for a chance
to be alone together in a romantic place. And I hope that the
airlines figure out a way to stay in business that involves a certain
minimum level of customer service -- or that the government start
giving Amtrak the money it needs to provide excellent service to rail
passengers so that as many travellers as possible have a meaningful
alternative to the airlines.

That is completely unacceptable on the part of AA and I hope you get
your free roundtrip tickets. IMO it's the least they can do for you. I
hope you'll post an update when you hear from them.

I agree they shul dhave flown them out on whatever flight was the next
available - on any airline. I do not think it is unreasonable to ask
for additional compensation - either the OP had to forfeit part of her
vacation, the deposits on her vacation, or pay n=more to getthere on
time - any way you look at it, she is out money thanks to AA.

It is unlikely that the cancellation was weather related - she still
flew out of DFW, just on a better airline. I say better because who
doesn't remember the hundreds of lfights AA cancelled last year when
they had to fix faulty wiring on their MD80s? I do because I was
flying on AA during that 2 week period and was a mess wondereing if I
would get home or not.
And yes, it's great that they were fixing the airplanes, but they
should have maintained them in the first place.

So, anyway, if it wasn't weather, it's their fault in my book.

First of all you did get reimbursed from American Airlines for your
original tickets. Once you accepted the refund from AA this also
cancelled your return flight because this was included in the original
tickets. Which someone at AA should have pointed this out since it was
return fares also.

What you are out is the difference in the price of the first class and
coach seating from Continental. You wrote you paid for two first class
fares but received only one. So I believe that this is where another
refund should be coming from.

AA Owes you nothing.
They cancelled your flight and issued a refund upon your request. They
offered to fly you on a different day, but you declined.
You chose to purchase the tickets from a different carrier. American
did not make you. They are not at fault at all for your decision to
make last minute first class tickets on a different airline. Since you
received a refund, what more do they owe you? You could have chose to
stay home, but due to the importance of the trip you made other
arrangements. Not AA's fault. If they had not cancelled the flight,
then you would not have been out that money, but they lived up to
their end of the deal, and have no control over your actions or the
fares of other carriers.

"We have NEVER been on first class b/c of cost....we took the tickets
and went about our business. As the flight from Houston to Cancun
arrived, my husband was able to sit first class and I was NOT!
(remember we paid for them!) "
This aspect belongs in a second complaint to Continental, and is a
valid complaint.