Departures Board at Bangkok's BKK Airport

Last week, I flew to San Francisco for my first trip away from my family. Fortunately, it was only a 24-hour trip but when I saw rain in the forecast for a Friday at SFO, I knew there was a good chance of delays and cancelations. No matter what the weather is, I always sign up for the airlines’ flight notifications (most do it automatically these days) and I also use TripIt Pro. But neither of those are good unless you actually monitor your email frequently.

Luckily, I happened to wake up early and noticed I recently had received emails both from American Airlines (AA) and TripIt, stating that my 1:15 pm flight was canceled. I immediately called AA and they said they could put me on the 5:20 pm flight. I was like, “Whoa…I need to be home.” So they squeezed me in on the 3:55 pm flight. An hour later, I got another email (and a phone call this time), alerting me that the 3:55 pm flight was canceled too and they could put me on the 9:10 pm flight. I said that wasn’t going to work. It was 9:15 am and I asked if there was anything sooner. They said all that was available was the 10:15 am flight but it was delayed until 12 pm. I said I’d take it! The agent said it was full but when I asked for her to doublecheck, she discovered that a seat had just opened up.

Later at the airport, I learned from one of the agents that on days like these, when there are a lot of cancelations, inventory changes frequently because airlines (usually) automatically rebook passengers on other flights. Oftentimes, those flights don’t work for some passengers’ schedules (they may have a business meeting or an event that they will miss) so they call and get themselves put on alternate flights or cancel their flight altogether.

Bottom line: Constantly check your flight’s status, especially in bad weather. If I hadn’t, I would have arrived home 10 hours later than I wanted to.

Related: What to Do: Weather Delays and Flight Cancellations

 

____________________________________________________________

Tried this tip? Let me know in the comments!
Have your own tip? Email it to whitney@johnnyjet.com!
Want to see more tips? Click here for all 791!

Want even more travel tips? Subscribe to the Daily Travel Tip newsletter! All you have to do is sign up for the weekly newsletter by filling in your email address and checking the Daily Travel Tip box in the top-right corner of the homepage.

If you already subscribe to the newsletter, fill in your email and check the Daily Travel Tip box in the same top-right corner of the homepage and you’ll receive an email with a link to update your JohnnyJet.com preferences. On that page, just click the Daily Travel Tip box and Update Profile and you’ll have Johnny’s best tips, straight to your inbox each day. And don’t worry—it’s easier than it sounds!

Leave a Reply

Required fields are marked *

Recent posts