Time change for flight reservation

[Kay H Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Kay H]

In August I made ressies to fly to West Palm Beach from Philly in March for my grandson's wedding. I was schedules to leave Philly on United at 9:07 AM with a plane change in Newark, NJ. Yesterday I checked my ressies and I was scheduled to leave Philly at 5:45 AM with a plane change in Cleveland, Ohio.

I called United and told them the early flight was unacceptable and asked to be put on a later flight. I was rescheduled on a 9:57 flight with a plane change in Cleveland. I hope there is no snow in Cleveland at that time.

The part that surprised me was that the agent said she would enter the fare that I paid so that I wouldn't be charged the current fare since I changed my reservation. I didn't change the reservation, United did.

Is it usual to charge the current fee when you don't accept the new ressies that the airline made? I didn't cancel my ressie, I just asked them to make it more acceptable since they changed it. Luckily I wasn't charged the new fare because it is much higher than I paid.

[IreneLF Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close IreneLF]

I had a similar problem when we went to Cali last year (American). They wanted to charge me over $1200 addt'l -- even though they rescheduled the flight by more than 4 hours, making it unacceptable for my plans. Took 45 minutes and a supervisor, but finally all was well.

They will try anything , your job is to keep nicely fighting and saying what THEY did was unacceptable.

Airlines also have (had?) rules about canceling/"changing" without penalty when they disrupt the flight times by more than a set amount (it was 90 minutes years ago). That should have applied in your case yoo.
what all this has taught me is thjat I have to keep checking on the reservation to make sure they don;t reschedule.

[gandalf252002 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close gandalf252002]

I got luck with a US Airways reservation that I have coming up for Feb 23rd where they made changes. I think now we have a connecting flight, but the times have not changed significantly. This however is good information to know, as this is the first I have ever encountered an airline changing flights such as this. Agree that if you are polite, and just reiterate that this was their mistake, and that they should fix it all will be well. I know that cancelling and requesting a full refund and trying to book other flights is not always a possibility.

[Kay H Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Kay H]

Irene,
We must travel with the same itinerary. We both had the same cancellation problem with Spirit air last year too. I made out better than you did on that one. Your DH had to drive you to Philly. Spirit paid for a driver to take me to Philly. I must have been more pleasant than you. LOL(only kidding)

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

I still remember the non-stop with return trip flight I booked from NY to Cancun. What a find ! By the time we left it turned into NY to Memphis to Cancun and the return to Tampa(where we had to run to catch our next flight including the trip thru customs) to Detroit to NY. It boggles the mind and just may be part of the reason why the airlines can't make money.