Flight alerts

For the first time, AA has messed with our flights, and not notified us. Our flight out of our home airport (New Bern, NC) is now an hour later, giving us only 50 minutes to connect in CLT; and our connection on the way home has been pushed back to the latest flight, resulting in a four+ hour layover on the way home. I'm not worried about the flight home, but I'm not willing to risk such a short connection on the way down. I'll be making a phone call in the next couple of days to see what we can do.

Our flight from our home airport on AA coming up in October was also done the same way. We had booked the early flight out of GSP, connecting through CLT and they changed us to a flight with very little connection time to SXM. I feel much better if we get to CLT and have time to breathe a minute and eat breakfast in CLT than having to worry about any delays causing us to miss our flight out of CLT. I booked the trip in May, but I was checking the flight in July and saw that they had changed it. I finally got an automated phone alert last week from AA saying they had changed the flight. They left me a number to call if I had issues with the change. I called and got it changed back to an earlier flight. Hopefully they won't change it again between now and mid October.

As far as flight alerts, I've never gotten a notice from AA or any other airlines, when my flight changed. That's why it's always good to keep checking yourself, every couple of months, just to make sure. With regard to your particular issue, remember that if there is a 'substantial' change in your itinerary, that you have the right to CANCEL your booking altogether and get ALL your money back. Not saying that you will want to do that, but it gives you a whole lot more leeway with them, that they REALLY don't want to have to give you your money back. Before you call, check out all the possible flights that would work for you and have some suggestions of what you want, before you call. If necessary, including changing dates, even. As I said, they will be more flexible with you, because they don't want to give your money back. Good luck.

I have always received AA flight change alerts. We usually book ours 331 days in advance so changes are expected.

Yep, we have too; just not this time. Usually it's only a few minutes and not an issue; but this time I'm not comfortable with the short connection.

I don't know whether or not they'd consider this change substantial enough to refund; but a 50 minute connection in CLT doesn't really allow any flexibility at all. I don't mind running for a connection, but it's a very long way from our arrival gate to our departure gate, and since the doors close ten minutes prior to departure, we really would only have 40 minutes. We'll see what they say, but as you suggest, I'm going to research all of our options before I call.

I'm not sure that what counts has really been defined, unless you go from a nonstop to a connecting flight, etc., but if you suggest something reasonable, they probably will go for it. Let us know how it turns out.

They told me when the change is over 60 minutes from original departure time, they are required to accommodate you. In my case, I had booked a 5:25 AM departure flight, and they changed ours to 7:20 AM departure. As it turns out, they had a 6:00 AM flight that they put me back on and all worked out. They also changed our return flights but these were less than the magic 60 minutes and they would not adjust those to other flights without me paying some additional money, which was not going to happen.

If that's the case, then I'm golden. I'm over an hour change on both ends. Will call them later in the week when I'm in the frame of mind to deal with it, lol.

I will assume there were (are) other travelers on that cancelled flight that might also want a better connection in CLT to somewhere.

The early bird gets the worm....

Georgia,

I think boucharda makes a good point and since others may be competing for those same seats I wouldn't wait too long before getting my dibs in. As they say, "the early bird" and all that jazz........

And on another note, never having flown through CLT, are there multiple terminals? We're flying for the first time from our regional airport in a smaller jet and I'm wondering (worrying and doing my normal 'what if' bit already) how much time we need to change planes. We have about an hour but I'm learning our regional airport has a history of delayed flights and departures. Not worried about the return since we will be flying into JFK on JB. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/handshake.gif" alt="" />

Charlotte is HUGE, yes, multiple terminals, and when we went through there in June this year, half of the moving sidewalks were down. Hope they are working by the time you go through!

Yes, there are multiple terminals, but they're all like spokes on a wheel, so you don't have to take buses or trains to get from one to the other.

On the subject of our flights, I researched, and there are really no other acceptable options. I looked back at our original flights, and the new one is only 15 minutes later than the original, but they've allowed 30 minutes more flight time than the flight normally takes, so I think we'll probably be fine. If we miss the connection, there's a later CLT/SXM flight that's showing a lot of empty seats now; so we've decided to stick with what we have for now. I'll keep my eye on the seats on that later flight, and if they start to fill up, we'll decide if we want to go ahead and book that flight, or just take the chance.

Oh the joys of flying these days.....not.

The trend over the past several years seems to be the airlines building more and more "fluff" time into the schedules. This allows for better "on time" performance among other things. When booking many months out, especially for SXM, there often seems to be schedule adjustments. Some or minor and some are major and I have seen it with both AA/USAir and Delta in my case.