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When an Airline Change Works in Your Favor
A couple of months ago, I heavily promoted American Airlines’ $1 fares (+ tax) from Los Angeles and New York to Copenhagen (CPH). I think they were matching Norwegian Air Shuttle’s ridiculously low fares on their CPH-LAX/NYC routes.

Well, since American doesn’t have non-stop flights to Copenhagen, all of their flights were going via London. The only fare I could find from LAX on the days I wanted to fly also had a stop in New York. I obviously prefer to make the least amount of stops possible but when the fares are that low, I realize beggars can’t be choosers—and I booked it. Then the other day, I noticed that American had changed the flight time from New York to London, so instead of having a two-hour layover, I now had a 4.5-hour layover!

I called American up and asked if they could put me on a different flight, and the agent said that because the airline had made a schedule change, he could do so without any fee. Score! I asked if he would put me on the non-stop flight to London but after a lengthy hold, he said he couldn’t because the connection to Copenhagen would be too tight. I disagreed, since 90 minutes is doable, but I didn’t press. He did, however, put me on a later flight to New York out of LA so my layover is now just two hours. Moral of this story: If the airline changes the schedule, always call up and try to get something that works better for your schedule.

 

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1 Comment On "Travel Tip of the Day: When an Airline Change Works in Your Favor"
  1. Brian Lyne|

    Completely agree with this one! I had booked my family vacation from JFK to STT last summer for around $1600. During the spring we wound up relocating to NC and would now have to find our way back to JFK and home again, which wasn’t exactly cheap during peak summer travel. I got an alert that my flight had been updated from a direct JFK-STT to a stop through MIA and that the carrier had changed to USAir for one leg. I’m an ExcPlat with them so not sure if that played into it but the agent actually was able to rebook the entire flight out of RDU, through MIA and on to STT for no change fee and the roughly $500 difference in fare. Saved me well over $1000. Folks, definitely sign up for alerts when you book tickets, it can save you tons of time and money!

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