AA Cutbacks Hit Our Flight!!

[KJHorton]

We had this happen tonight. :( We accepted the changes without thinking thru the whole thing.

we lost our 4.5 hr non-stop for an 8 hr thru Philly to Orlando:rolleyes:

I realized after I hung up that we could book Southwest nonstop....too late

I accepted the change and now i have to pay the change fee. well I didn't know until AFTER I accepted that I could get my money back. :mad:

this just sucks...and I am sorry to all the others going thru the same thing.

 

 

If they substantially changed your flights, you are entitled to rebook to more convenient flights without charge, just as you can get a refund. If they made you pay, you should call them back and tell them that they changed the flights and now they are inconvenient so you should not have to pay any change fee.

 

I had to do this twice with our AA flights to SJU in March.

[wrp96]

If they substantially changed your flights, you are entitled to rebook to more convenient flights without charge, just as you can get a refund. If they made you pay, you should call them back and tell them that they changed the flights and now they are inconvenient so you should not have to pay any change fee.

 

Ah, but you can only call once per schedule change and ask for new flights. She has already called and accepted a change to new flights. She can't call back now and say that won't work after all. What she can do is hope and pray there is another schedule change, and then call.

[gerif]

I had a direct flight booked on Continental a couple of weeks ago from Louisville to Newark - got a call at home (I had given them my cell #, but they called the home phone) that morning saying my flight was cancelled. DH tracked me down and I called the 800 #. My original flight was at 4:20 arriving at 6:35. They told me I was now on a 5 p.m. connection through Cleveland. Was able to change it to a 1:40 connection as all direct flights were booked. Well, of course, there were the requisit storms, etc., so I didn't get home until nearly 10 p.m. My friend who was on the same flight never was notified at all, but I managed to snag her a seat on the same flight.

 

Hard to say about LGA - I live 36 miles away and last time I had to go there it took 2-1/2 hours to get home (this was on a Sunday afternoon) - traffic pattern is everything in this area.

[dutchess43]

Last year AA changed my flights twice coming home from San Diego. The second time I called AA & told them that I was disgusted with the changes I happened to get a nice rep & she put us on a non stop flight to JFK. We are flying AA next month to San Juan on the flight down they changed the time twice not so bad, but on our return flight they cancelled our flight & put us on another. Thank goodness that I check constantly so I could get us better seats & not the stuck in the middle seats that they gave me. AA finally notifled me 4 weeks after they made on the change.

[hunnypot1]

Just found out that our direct flight has been eliminated and now our return trip will take 7 hours instead of an hour and a half. Anyone else had this problem? What options do we have? Another airline has direct flights, can we request that? We are flying out of Newark, but would Laguardia be an option? How long is the trip from Bayonne to LGA?

 

 

Our AA flight from Laguardia to Santa Ana (CA) used to be directly, but now we have been changed to a flight with a stop in Texas.

But hey, at least our flight was not cancelled. That would have stunk.

[Traveler723]

I was EXCEEDINGLY fortunate to get 7 award seats for our flight from JFK to SJU. However, after we were all booked they moved our flight from early in the morning to the afternoon, forcing us all to lose a day of fun in San Juan. One phone call and they moved us to a much earlier flight, earlier than we might have liked, but we are still getting there earlier. I really cannot complain about AA as far as how they have treated us. I am terribly sorry for what others will go through.

[noddingheadgirl]

I first noticed our flight change on AA.com and was shocked to find out that they never called/emailed me the changes. A few weeks later, I did get a call regarding the changes. We have a big group of family flyin to PR with us, my parents, me, a grandmother and 3 cousins. My parents/grandmother/me booked the flight at the same time, and my cousins did it at two different times. So unless something drastic happens, I won't look for another flight via another airport/airline cause it would be a hassle to make sure that the other family members actually are able to change the flights..Since we are flyin into PR 2 days prior and leaving about a week after the cruise, I'm not stressed that we won't be able to make the cruise.

[LisaRhea]

We have had the same thing happen to us several times before. When the changes they made were significantly different, I've always been able to call and have an agent change the flight to something more convenient for us - at no fee. Of course, they will be less likely to make a change if you are only an hour or two from your original flight. BUT, if it impacts any excursion plans you may have OR if you are traveling with children or elderly, talk nice and ask. If you don't ask, the answer, by defalut, is "no," so asking only improves the odds that you can be changed to something more convenient.

[noddingheadgirl]

i just checked aa.com again, and they say there is a schedule change, but i can't figure out what it would be..it might be the second leg of our going trip, but i'm not too sure...lol.

[wrp96]

i just checked aa.com again, and they say there is a schedule change, but i can't figure out what it would be..it might be the second leg of our going trip, but i'm not too sure...lol.

 

 

I have an itinerary where there is a "schedule change" that they changed the arrival time in Chicago by 10 minutes. The departure time is still the same. The "schedule change" is fine with me so I don't even worry about it. It's very possible that you have a similiar change.

[dutchess43]

NEVER TAKE YOUR RESERVATION FOR GRANTED! ALWAYS CHECK! My friends that were meeting us in Ft Lauderdale in May never checked their reservations because the cruise was booked 13 months in advance by a TA. A week before my friend finally checks the reservation with AA & was told that when the custom air was acquired that the TA never confirmed it so therefore their reservations were cancelled. You can only imagine the screaming. Well AA worked hard & had them on the on the flight without seats, by the time they checked in at Dallas AA came through & they got seats on the flight. It was nail biting! Especially with all of the flight changes I check my flight's daily & right up to the time I leave for the airport.

[NycShip]

I am not trying to scare you but it is not worth it to fly into LGA at any cost. Espically if you heading to bayonne. There is always traffic and regardless if there isn't it will still be over an hour trip and very costly I would say a cab would run you way over 100 dollars. Pay the extra money and save yourself the headache and fly into Newark. Take my advice I have lived in NYC my whole life and if you fly into LGA you will better plan on having 3 hours time just to be safe.

[As the ship sails]

Ah, but you can only call once per schedule change and ask for new flights. She has already called and accepted a change to new flights. She can't call back now and say that won't work after all. What she can do is hope and pray there is another schedule change, and then call.

 

The poster that you responded to wasn't impying that the airline should make another change for them but was suggesting that she should get a refund for the change as the airline made the change and when the OP accepted the change they charged her a change fee. The poster minnie00 should not have to pay a change fee for a change the airline made.

[dutchess43]

I agree with NYCship I also have lived in N.Y. City & now east of the city on Long Island all my life & try to advoid LaGuardia at all costs, fly into Newark it will be a lot less hassle.

[xxbrowns]

I just realized now AA has changed our flights also. We originally booked non-stop flights now our both our flights have layovers. It's tough when you have young children traveling with the layovers. Oh well. It's good to know that others have been accommodated with changes. I will look into that and see if there are any non-stop flights available. Ugh.

 

 

Chris

[satxdiver]

We are booked on a RT flight to SJU in September. We booked though the airline. They notified me of the change which luckily was only involving times and not new cities. The timing though was bad as I want at least one hour or more between connections. I called AA and they gladly changed our flights/times for a more comfortable time between flights. Since they are the ones that changed the original fight plan, they did not charge me for the changes.

 

I also was notified by NWA of flight time changes for a direct flight I have scheduled for the end of next month. I called them and they changed the outbound flight to an earlier time without charge. The flight time they had proposed would have arrived too late for me to do my business. I booked through them.

[xxbrowns]

Okay, I just checked a travel search engine and then AA's website. I could not believe my eyes. My nice non-stop flight that I originally booked and now my not so non-stop flight that they changed us to, which cost us some $230 dollars x 6 is now for the price of 1 passenger a nice sum of $2,042.00!!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

 

What are these airlines trying to do?? This may be our last air vacation!!! Yikes!! Thought I'd share that with you.

 

and BTW: there are no non-stops for the itinerary we booked and they did give us the best option for what they have available.

 

Chris

[wrp96]

You know the issue you have when you go to the gas pumps? The airlines have the same problem. When gas prices were lower, they could afford to subsidize less profitable routes and offer extremely low prices because other routes and fares would make up the difference. I don't have the exact figures but on many routes those really cheap fares were below the actual cost to fly the route. But once gas prices started rising rapidly, less profitable routes became no profit routes (or loss routes). So as a result they are cutting back on routes and raising prices.

[dosherpack]

We are now booked out of LGA at 3pm. That should give us plenty of time to make our flight and get to the football game. It is on Saturday, so I assume less traffic. I had AA make a change for me once before just after 9/11 and they were very nice to deal with. Now, if we can just get through this without having this flight cancelled. Lots of empty seats based on looking at Expedia.

[wrp96]

dosherpack, just keep watching your reservation on AA's website.

 

Also, don't rely on the seating chart to tell you how full a flight is. A lot of people don't get preassigned seats (or they lose their seat assignments after a schedule change and don't know to go in and reselect their seats).

[cruisingram1]

I was lucky to be able to get six FF seats on AA into Galveston for spring break. Could not get us all together so Grandpa is flying alone. Each trip requires a change of planes so with return that's 6 people x 4 legs - uh, that's 24 chances to be messed up. Only a month into the reservation, AA has already cancelled one flight (put Grandpa back on our flight that did not have any more FF seats so that's a plus!) but also changed the flight number on that flight so all of our original seat assignments were messed up. Got an email for Grandpa's flight change, but not for flight number/seat assignment change. I wonder what other fun AA has up their sleeves. There's still 8 months to go! Don't get me wrong.. I am THRILLED to have gotten the 6 tickets, but fear I'm not done with this reservation yet. Thanks for the reminder.. monitor one's reservation constantly!