Jet Blue Changed my flight!

I had my reservations all set for Cape Cod in October. I made them in June, flying out of San Diego in the early morning on the 5th. Scrambled and got a B&B in Salem for a few days prior to my Cape Cod Days.

I just called Jet Blue to verify a routine matter on the flight, to be told that they changed my departing flight to a Red Eye, leaving San Diego at 10:00 p.m. and arriving in Boston on the 6th, too late for one of the nights I fought so hard to get at a B&B in Salem, MA in October, along with the thrill of staggering through an airport, blearly eyed at 5:00 a.m. with an 8 year old, to change planes. I think not!

They were very good about refunding my money but I am not thrilled about having to start over hunting for a flight. They said that now, all they have is red-eyes San Diego to Boston, no day flights at all. So if you have a day flight on that route, and do not want to fly overnight and miss an evening of your vacation, better call them!

I have done a whole lof of flying and never had this happen. This was my first experience with Jet Blue. I hope this is not the norm.

Why don't you take the Red Eye the night before? It's not that bad.
PS. Fox Run is in NC. (good job )

I would not even consider taking a red eye flight. I am one of those people who cannot sleep on a plane or in a car, never have been able to. I would literally be up all night, with a child who would only sleep lightly and sporadially in a strange place like a plane surrounded by strangers, so I would lose the 5th, which I had plans for in the evening with my family there, plus the 6th while I was catching up on sleep, having been up for a very long time. No Thanks. If I has wanted to chance a night flight, I would have done it on Priceline for less money than I am spending.

Hotels in Salem, MA are in major demand in October. People book months ahead of time, even longer in some cases I had to hunt for a very long time to book the B&B that I got. I am not about to give up half of my trip there.

JetBlue said they were "in the process" of notifying people. Cancelling ALL day flights to Boston, they must have had quite a list to notify.

Dee in California said:

Cancelling ALL day flights to Boston, they must have had quite a list to notify.

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or not, maybe it wasn't that popular, that's why they cancelled it.

Dee, that would totally upset me too. I also am not someone who sleeps on planes, much less traveling with a child! I would have serious doubts about using Jet Blue after your experience.
Liz

Write to you congressmen

I agree, that is total bull and all the airlines have been pulling stuff with nobody stopping them. Something needs to be done and it needs to happen now. I would send a letter to the Transportation Secretary, action line, and the airline complaining about what is going on. If enough people do this I bet things will change.
Our big dilema is flying into or out of Texas. Flights seem to always be delayed and I'm not talking about weather (weather I understand). They are delaying flights because planes aren't being serviced as often as they used to be all to save a dime. We had delays coming and going to and from Florida and California through Texas and my brother who flys reguraly has delays through there all the time. Cancellations like yours are even worse and thats not even talking about changes with children.
Bart

I have been checking my already booked flights on Air Tran for an upcoming Oct trip. They have changed the non stop flights several times already. We were suppose to leave at 10am and arrive at 2:30ish. Then they changed it for an afternoon flight!! Now it is back to morning, but leaving an hour later, therefore arriving an hour later.

What do you all do about your rental car pick ups when they keep changing times? Does it matter if you are an hour off one way or the other? I sure would hate to lose my reservation because we were a no show in their eyes. :annoyed:

I have to do some tweaking with the reservations anyway, due to a change in the people going. Can I use this as ammunition to ask for a full refund, without the usual penalty? Then I could rebook without losing the extra $100.

Delta guilty too!

We booked our flights to and from Oahu months ago and found out this week when we called, on some other matter, that they had changed our returning flight to leaving HNL to 11:30 at night (1 hr later) and it now arrives at LAX at 6:45 am with our connection taking off at 7:20am. Yea right!! We orriginally had a hour and a half layover. Not only will we not make the flight, but our luggage won't either. This was one of those deals at their website where you pick the whole itinerary for each way, not each leg. The 11:30 part doesn't really upset me because you just can't get back from Hawaii without flying redeye but to leave us an undoable connectin is just plain stupid! Today we call back and raise a fit. We just too stunned earlier this week.

Our daughter used her FF miles to book tickets for us to Seattle in September. I happened to check the Delta site and found that one of our 'assigned' seats was open now, Delta had changed our flight out of ATL and now had us arriving in ATL an hour AFTER our plane left for Seattle. She changed our flight from RSW to ATL so we get in an hour before we leave for Seattle. But there have been TWO other time changes since then. She and I will continue to check our flights to and from Seattle before we leave on the 2nd. And I know she'll check for us while we are gone, just in case they changed flights or times for our return trip. She commutes every week with Delta and says this is the norm anymore.

That is so frustrating.

I have had it happen to me several times. Mostly with Delta. The thing that really bothers me is on one of my return flights from Mazatlan a couple of years ago, they changed my flight to the next day. I guess I was supposed to spend the night in the airport. I was lucky enough to call and check my flights two days before departure and thats when I found out. I asked them "So when were you going to tell me that flight had been cancelled and I was to go out the next day?" Thier reply was "Our policy is to tell you a week before that date". How would they get hold of me? I was in Mexico.


So I always check my flights over and over again.

As many times as I have flown Southwest, I have never had a flight cancelled unless it was weather and then it was just delayed.

Had flights changed a couple of times might have been Delta or AA. This is why I always check. No one called us either. If the airline changes the flight used to be you could modify the flight time at no cost to you. Not sure if this is still true.
I cannot sleep in a car or plane either and certainly not with kids in tow. I would try something else so you don't miss the B&B in Salem MA in the fall.

cindi said:

What do you all do about your rental car pick ups when they keep changing times? Does it matter if you are an hour off one way or the other? I sure would hate to lose my reservation because we were a no show in their eyes. :annoyed:

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Don't worry about a one or two hour change either way, if you try to change the time on your reservation you'll get the then prevailing rate!!!

cindi said:

I have to do some tweaking with the reservations anyway, due to a change in the people going. Can I use this as ammunition to ask for a full refund, without the usual penalty? Then I could rebook without losing the extra $100.

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If it's enough of a change you can get them to change or cancel the modification with no penalties.

Thanks, Spence,

That is exactly what I wanted to know. I was afraid to mess around with my car reservations, as I had gotten a great rate. When I checked online to modify, the price went UP!! And that was for an hour LESS than I had orignally. :annoyed:

I kind of figured I could try to make my case with the schedule change, but wasn't sure.

Consider a legacy carrier if more flexibilty is desired. Schedule changes happen all the time but are more onerous on point-to-point LCC's.

Good luck!

Pat

I was told recently by AA that if the flight time changes by more than 90 minutes you can cancel the reservation without penalty.

cindi said:

Thanks, Spence,

That is exactly what I wanted to know. I was afraid to mess around with my car reservations, as I had gotten a great rate. When I checked online to modify, the price went UP!! And that was for an hour LESS than I had orignally. :annoyed:

I kind of figured I could try to make my case with the schedule change, but wasn't sure.

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You should be able to just call the rental car company and advise them the time change in flight arrival. They can make the change without rebooking. Also might want to wait until the time is closer to help avoid additional flight changes...

Posted this to the wrong thread and more info added...

After reading this thread, I decided just to visit the Delta website and check on my reservation...which was made and booked months ago for this Christmas. We are flying Delta out of JFK into LAX (two nightmare airports).

Anyway, Delta had changed the flights for us (apparently the one we were on got cancelled) to a different time, and we no longer had seats. I was never notified and never would have known had I not checked on-line.

I called and got seats for us again, and was told that "Delta would be calling us evenutally" to let us know about the change; however, I also noticed that the flight had been changed once before as well...no notification of that either.

Also, I then tried to change the rental car (Budget) and was told they would change the rate because I was arriving an hour later than before! They advised me to keep the reservation as is, but that make me nervous too....

Sharon

debraxh said:

You should be able to just call the rental car company and advise them the time change in flight arrival. They can make the change without rebooking. Also might want to wait until the time is closer to help avoid additional flight changes...

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I disagree. With every car rental agency I've dealt with if they change the booking the rate goes to the prevailing rate. I recently tried this on a booking made months in advance because of a six hour flight time change, I told the agent I didn't want to change it if it changed the rate. She changed it anyway and it jumped from $420 for 2weeks SUV in FLA to about $700. She couldn't or wouldn't do a thing about it. I presented my original confirmation with $420 price and the rental agency refused to honor it saying the reservation had been changed. Having the feeling that this was going to happen, I made another reservation a week beforehand at the then prevailing rate of $460, that's the one I used because they rfused to honor the original.

Don't change the times and don't worry about it if it's a couple hours either way.

happened to us on Continental on our trip to San Juan to meet our cruise ship. I happened to notice this by chance too. They changed our flights for round trip. It could be devastating if this flight was later than departure time for the cruise ship

You should always recheck your flights beforehand esp if you make the flights months in advance. The odds of it changing are high when you book really far in advance. You can also have your hotel information placed into your reservation so they can call you if the flights change/cancel. I've done this several times and received calls that a flight as been changed or cancelled

The main reason I fly legecy carriers vs jetblue etc is they can interline you to another legecy carrier if necessary (be calm and insistant). Jetblue, SW can't.