NWA flight time changed.....

[kristenrice]

I booked my January 2008 airfare back in April. I expected our flight times to change so I purposefully added a day to the beginning of our vacation. Our originally scheduled flights were as follows:
Depart Friday 10:30am and arrive 1:08pm
Return Friday 2:00pm and arrive 4:43pm
They are non-stop both ways (the only non-stop flight from GRR available) which is why I chose them. Now, I got an e-mail from NWA that they changed the flights to the following:
Depart at 2:20 pm and arrive at 4:58pm
Return at 10:35 am and arrive at 1:18pm
Uh, the trip down is OK, but there is no way my kids are going to get up at 6:30am to be on the ME bus by 7:30am to go home! When I tried to change my flight on the NWA website, they wanted to charge me almost $900 to change my flight! Uh, no...it only cost me $950 to buy the tickets in the first place! I sent an e-mail hoping that a live person will call or e-mail me back. What are my chances that they will put me on a later flight without charging me any additional fees? There is an afternoon flight that connects in Detroit that would be great for us. I just don't want to get stuck paying an arm and a leg because they decided to switch the schedule around. Is there anything I need to do or say to work this out? I have no experience with this and I know there are a lot of frequent flyers out there....

 

[jodifla]

I booked my January 2008 airfare back in April. I expected our flight times to change so I purposefully added a day to the beginning of our vacation. Our originally scheduled flights were as follows:
Depart Friday 10:30am and arrive 1:08pm
Return Friday 2:00pm and arrive 4:43pm
They are non-stop both ways (the only non-stop flight from GRR available) which is why I chose them. Now, I got an e-mail from NWA that they changed the flights to the following:
Depart at 2:20 pm and arrive at 4:58pm
Return at 10:35 am and arrive at 1:18pm
Uh, the trip down is OK, but there is no way my kids are going to get up at 6:30am to be on the ME bus by 7:30am to go home! When I tried to change my flight on the NWA website, they wanted to charge me almost $900 to change my flight! Uh, no...it only cost me $950 to buy the tickets in the first place! I sent an e-mail hoping that a live person will call or e-mail me back. What are my chances that they will put me on a later flight without charging me any additional fees? There is an afternoon flight that connects in Detroit that would be great for us. I just don't want to get stuck paying an arm and a leg because they decided to switch the schedule around. Is there anything I need to do or say to work this out? I have no experience with this and I know there are a lot of frequent flyers out there....

I'd call Northwest and talk to a live person. I've had other airlines do this to me, and I've been able to change the flight.

Good luck!

 

[kristenrice]

I got an e-mail back within about 5 minutes. It had very good directions for how to find the flights available that I could change to without a fee. Unfortunately, the one I wanted was not an option. I was able to rebook a flight that departs at 4:45pm and has a mere 30 minute layover in Memphis. We won't get home to Grand Rapids until 9pm but that's OK. We only live a few minutes from the airport and I would rather extend the trip out than cut it short anyways. This actually works out better. It is a little late to get home, but it is far better than getting up at 6:30 in the morning! This way, we can sleep in until just before check out, do a leisurely lunch and then hopefully the kids will nap at the airport and on the plane on the way home.