After two more hours of work on this today that included two calls to AA, four calls to epassporte CS (all of which on an international cell phone) and standing at the AA ticket desk for over an hour, I eventually got to the bottom of it.
It's not that American Airlines is on epassporte's "un-trustworthy" list. It's the other way around. AA won't take epassporte cards because they're on the "un-truthworthy" list. Technically, epass cards are "pre-paid Visas". I guess that makes the $$ no good?
Smooth as sandpaper. Every epassporte rep I spoke with had a different explanation as to what was happening. None could explain why I couldn't take $500 out of the ATM, even though the daily limit on the ATM was $1000 per withdrawal and it offered a $500 withdrawal as an automatic option. I had to take out the $$ in $300 increments, otherwise it told me that I had "insufficient funds".
Then, I was informed on my FOURTH call to epass "customer service" (while paying $3.50 /minute with a $2 per call international connection tax) that in order to return the $1 hold that got put on the card from American Airlines, AA would have to fax a letter to epass explaining what happened.
Now here's my beef - If $1 can get approved on the card, why shouldn't $467 get approved on the same card? If epass is "un-trustworthy", then how does any transaction on one of their cards get approved? The $$ was there? $1's good enough, but more isn't? Additionally, if $1 can get approved, why can't it be returned without the headache of faxing custom letters for this and that?
Keyser IM'd me and I'm sure he'll return the $1 when we talk. It's not the $1 that I give a damn about. It's the 4 hours of lost time and all the headache because epassporte is considered "un-trustworthy" by a major airline.
It's always bugged me when people jump on the "fuck epass" bandwagon. In general, they're very useful. There are probably 10 threads with me saying great things about epass and defending them, urging people to wait for Keyser and Sean to jump in and save the day. They always do their best and God bless them for trying.
But guys, if there's going to be issues like this, warn us beforehand. Don't wait until we're screaming pissed because we can't get to our own money for one reason or another. Post a list of things you can and can't do with your epass cards.
It's like my 1stSgt used to say when I was in the Marine Corps,
"You can fuck with a man's sleep, you can even fuck with a man's food, but DO NOT FUCK with a man's money."