AA changing their flights

[MisWal]

I am so sick of American changing their flights!! They've totally changed things up twice now in 2 months for our May trip. Grrr. Luckily, I was checking my itinerary online to catch that the latest changes. Per my call to AA, the changes were made mid-February and they never sent an email to notify us. Not that we didn't receive it, the airline confirmed that one was never sent! Had I not been double checking, my niece would have missed her flight to MCO by 2 hours! Double grrrr.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

That is why it is best to be proactive and check your flights. they can change/cancel flights right up until the last minute.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Per my call to AA, the changes were made mid-February and they never sent an email to notify us. Not that we didn't receive it, the airline confirmed that one was never sent! Had I not been double checking, my niece would have missed her flight to MCO by 2 hours! Double grrrr.

Most airlines don't notify passengers of changes via email, even elite flyers, except for changes or cancellations made about 24 hours before the flight. It's your responsibility to check your flight occasionally.

I don't see how your niece could have missed her flight. I would hope that she would have at the very least checked her flight the night before, if only to check in.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Actually, AA will notify you IF you have data in the system to let them do it. If you booked via a TA (and Expedia, Orbitz etc.. are a TA) then they notify them.

However, notification is made in order of "change" So...your trip is still at least 35 days away. Those folks with changes in April get notified before May....

 

[crashbb]

Most airlines don't notify passengers of changes via email, even elite flyers, except for changes or cancellations made about 24 hours before the flight. It's your responsibility to check your flight occasionally.

I don't see how your niece could have missed her flight. I would hope that she would have at the very least checked her flight the night before, if only to check in.

I've always got an email (I mainly fly Star Alliance airlines - Air Canada, the most). However, it isn't always at the time that they make the change - sometimes it is closer (month or so) to flight time. I've had emails where I had to carefully search for the change since the changes was only a few minutes.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I am sure that some airlines do notify you; many do not. I usually fly United and you must check their web site to find out about changes. except changes made within about 24 hours of flight time.

I don't know why anyone would just show up at the airport for a flight without checking the status first, but obviously people do.

 

[MisWal]

We did receive emails for the first change and the CS rep was surprised and apologized repeatedly for an email not being sent.

And yes, my niece could have missed her flight. Seeing that we received emails for prior changes, we would assume (I now know this would have been my bad, lesson learned) that there were no changes and we would not have known until she checked in for her flight at the airport as we are flying out of separate cities and meeting in Dallas.

Lesson learned and I will be checking weekly and then daily a couple weeks before our trip.

 

[aubriee]

Actually, AA will notify you IF you have data in the system to let them do it. If you booked via a TA (and Expedia, Orbitz etc.. are a TA) then they notify them.

However, notification is made in order of "change" So...your trip is still at least 35 days away. Those folks with changes in April get notified before May....

Not always! I posted about this both before our trip when they moved two of us to another flight, but left one of us on the old flight and then I posted again after we got back when they moved us all around the plane, after I paid for our seats together. My husband and I took our three y/o grandson down there Feb 4th-11th. We got an email about a month before we left saying there had been a change to my husband's itinerary. Nothing was said about mine or my grandson's. When we checked, they had moved me and my husband to a different plane coming home, an hour earlier. However, they had left my 3 y/o GS on the other flight by himself. I immediately called and was told that the first flight was overbooked, so they had moved two of us to an earlier flight. Fine, but you've got to get my 3 y/o GS on that flight too. I'm not leaving him the Orlando airport to catch a flight an hour after ours. She didn't seem to understand why I was upset, until we realized they had him listed as an adult. Excuse me, when I booked the flight, I checked child. After looking at it again, she admitted she saw he was a toddler and said that since we booked together, she didn't know why they didn't move him when they moved us. She guessed they just thought he was an adult and would be fine on the later flight and we could just meet up in Dallas after our respective flights home. She then put me on hold for a long time, but finally came back and said she had moved someone else back to our original flight and had our grandson on the earlier flight with us. I had asked her to put us all back on our original flight, but she said it was easier to just move someone from that flight back to our original flight, since both flights were oversold.

Anyway, I thought everything was fine. I did keep an eye on the flights all the way up until the morning we left Dallas for Orlando and there was no more changes and we were all seated together, like we had been originally (only further back in the plane). Imagine my surprise a week later when I checked our boarding passes on the way from WDW to MCO, just to find that even though we had paid for our seats and had been seated together (when I checked the morning of our departure the week before), sometime during the week we were at WDW, they had scattered us around the plane. As soon as we got off the DME bus, I immediately went to the AA desk asking for our seats back, but was told to have the desk agent upstairs handle it. As soon as we got through security and off the tram, I went to the gate agent, who told me that I'd have to have the FA ask when we boarded, but she told me it shouldn't be a problem, as my husband had a good aisle seat and the person in the aisle seat that was sitting next to my 3 y/o GS several rows behind would probably be glad to change with him. She said that I'd probably be stuck in the middle seat I had been assigned closer to the front though. I reminded her that we had paid to choose our seats, so that we could sit together, but she said there was nothing she could do and wasn't sure why we had been moved (probably to accommodate someone else though). Thankfully shortly before we boarded, we got called to the desk and was given new boarding passes, with all three of us sitting in the first row of coach. Apparently they hold the first row of coach. Either that or they moved someone else to get us together. I know a lady sitting across from us was called up to the desk just before we were and came back excited that she had been given a free upgrade to first class.

All I know is that I normally flew Air Tran from DFW to MCO several times a year (before they got pulled out of Dallas Nov 22nd) and even though the times might get changed occasionally, I've never experienced all the trouble we had with that AA flight Feb 11th MCO to DFW. It was like they couldn't get anything right. We had booked our flights together and paid for our seats. They were the ones who kept moving us around and other than the one email telling us my husband's itinerary had changed, never notified us of the other changes.

 

[backyardponder]

After dealing with United and some changes they made to screw up my trip to Arizona, I appreciate Southwest so much more. They rarely change their schedule after they come out with it.

On my upcoming United flight, I called their reservation department (in India). They (including a supervisor) insisted that I had approved the changes they made to my reservation which I hadn't. They said I had to contact customer relations.

I contacted customer relations and quoted the section of the Conditions of Carriage (yes, I read those things when needed) which stated that if my arrival or departure changed more than 2 hours, United would try to book me on another airline. I got a reply from customer relations which stated that their department did not deal with future flights, but that I should re-contact reservations. I did that and the folks at reservations were nice and booked me on a US Air flight which better meets my time needs. I have a feeling that Customer Relations put something in my file which made reservations a lot nicer to me.

 

[francie57]

We learned this a long time ago with Delta. They had changed our times and then through all of the assigned seats back into the computer and reassigned the seats. I have just gotten in the habit, no matter which airline, of checking in once a week to make sure nothing has changed.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I have a feeling that Customer Relations put something in my file which made reservations a lot nicer to me.

Probably not. If you aren't a United Frequent Flyer, they just don't care that much. If you are a high level United FF, you don't get routed to a call center in India. You luckily just got a reservations agent who understood the rules. Your story is a good example of why people need to read and understand their airline's Contract of Carriage; probably 1 in 1,000 people do.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I hate to say this, but if you want your rant read....

Paragraphs are your friend. I gave up on aubriee's post to quickly to understand the problem. Sorry

 

[NancyIL]

Aubriee - why did you pay for seats on American? Unless you wanted preferred seats, you could've chosen your seats at no cost at the time you bought your tickets.