Check And Recheck Your Flights

[talkamotta]

This is just a reminder that many of you know and do. KEEP CHECKING YOUR FLIGHTS TO MAKE SURE THEY HAVENT BEEN CANCELLED. I checked my flights a couple of times, we are going from SLC to Cancun on December 10th. I was half way expecting the flight to be cancelled. As of last Saturday it was scheduled, in fact the rep at Delta changed our seats so that our party of 4 was sitting all together. I thought yeah....Im out of the woods. On Tuesday I was surfing the net, etc. and was curious to see how much more expensive our flight had gone up to. We bought the round trip, direct flight for $450/each. I couldnt find the flight....Called Delta and they had cancelled the flight on Sunday. They said it was due to Wilma. Now I would have expected that flight to be cancelled a week or so before and would have been more patient but now I wasnt. The only flights I could get on Delta at that price was a 7+ hour layover in Atlanta airport going down and an overnight stay coming back. Needless to say that wasnt acceptable. I lucked out Frontier had another direct flight for $50 more on each ticket and of course Delta refunded my money. Im not sure when Delta would have called they said they would have called sometime this week. Last time this happend with Delta they never did call, I just happend to call 2 days before we were scheduled to leave.

[Neesie]

I'm so glad that you got Frontier tickets!

Not wanting to sound dumb.....but....after a person purchases their tickets over the internet how do you "check" your flight? A 1-800 number?

[Bruce W]

We had a similar situation. We are flying to Florida this Thursday, our itinerary was to fly into St Petersburg and home from Orlando. Our flight to St Pete on USA3000 was scheduled for 3:30. I was checking on the PC last week for an additional ticket and I noticed the flight was now 6:45PM. I called them and they confirmed the change, but, no one had a definite answer as to why we were not notified. There are 6 of us traveling. The impact of this is that the car rental office in St Pete closes at 9:30, so effectively we would be without a car if there was as much as a minute delay.
We decided to change to Orlando ( a 1:45 flight), the airline waived the change fee, but, we were not able to get as good a rate on the car so it cost us $120 more for the 2 cars. Along with that we will be driving from Orlando( with it's traffic problems) to Englewood, instead of from St Pete.

Bruce W

[Dave M]

Originally Posted by Neesie

after a person purchases their tickets over the internet how do you "check" your flight?

The easiest way is at the airline's site. Most airlines have a "My itineraries" (or similar wording) section of their web sites. Simply log in with your FF # and password and check the current status of your reservation and seat assignments.

If you made the reservation through an on-line travel agent, such as Orbitz or Travelocity, simply access your account at that site (e.g., "My Trips" at Orbitz) and check the status.

Or, as you suggested, you can call the airline and ask for an update. That's probably the least preferable way to check, since telephone hold times in waiting to talk to an airline rep are often significant.

[sfwilshire]

I went online to check on our flight to Hawaii for next June because I'm still shopping for tickets for two of my kids and didn't have the schedule handy. I found that they had changed one of our flights, so we were arriving in Atlanta four hours after we were to depart from Atlanta. HUH???

I immediately called Delta and they resolved that issue (with only an hour or so of extra inconvenience to us), but you'd think the original schedule change would have caused some computer or person to raise the red flag on our routing.

Guess I'll be checking often between now and June.

Sheila

[talkamotta]

I keep the emails/confirmations that I get back from the airline. There is usually a link that you can click on and it should show you the reservation. Frontier's link gives you the most recent.
When I was checking Delta's I would just look up the flight, that is until it wouldnt come up anymore.
Right now Im on the phone with Delta making sure the refund comes through and presently the agent isnt able to track my refund. Im a little negative with Delta right now but I want to double confirm everything I do with them. It seems its always better to be safe and a pain than to be sorry.

[camachinist]

For folks who book on the Amedeus CRS, you can check your reservations at CheckMyTrip.com

Also, many airlines have flight paging which will send updates to a text-enabled wireless device or telephony applicance. I use this setup with UA, as they utilize Apollo for their CRS.

Interestingly, on our most recent MR, UA cancelled our BDL-IAD return leg while we were in Hartford, CT and re-booked us through ORD. In reality, the BDL-IAD flight did operate (I tracked it) and was two hours late into IAD and the IAD flight was 4 hours late leaving and got into SFO 3.5 hours late. We had already driven home (about 150 miles) by the time it arrived, after spending a nice Halloween hour or two in the RCC prior to the drive.

The lesson is that, sometimes, cancellations can be a good thing

Pat

[talkamotta]

Planning for vacations and making plane reservations is like gambling. Its almost like you need an extra day on each end and a couple hundred extra dollars, if you want to play it safe.
I know that with the financial position with most of the airlines, it isnt profitable for them to fly many direct flights especially when something like Wilma hits. Take for example my flight at the begining of this thread slc to cancun. I'm just guessing but maybe the number of people on that flight dropped down to 100, better yet if it were lower. It would make sense to me that with the strong competition, and Delta being partners with Continental and stuggling with their image, that the customer service department at Delta would have taken the time to call me up and suggested an alternative flight plan for my party of 4. Continental had flights going both ways that was only a difference of 3 hours. My original flight was direct and Continental had a change of planes in Houston each way. Instead they only suggested that I spend the night in the Atlanta airport for over a 7+ hour layover. I wouldnt have cancelled my 4 flights ($2000 lost revenue) and I would think Delta rocks. Now I am grateful to Frontier.

[zdxlc9p6]

I just checked my AA flight Cancun to Peoria, IL. Originally it was from Cancun to Chicago to Peoria. Now it is Cancun to Dallas FW to Chicago to Peoria. The 2 stops is a nusiance, but the real problem is the schedule has us arriving in Chicago at 11:09PM 1/28, and leaving for Peoria at 8:31PM 1/28. I haven't called yet, but not sure how I will manage to leave 3 hrs before I arrive! I'm sure the luggage won't make it either!

[dive-in]

For our trip to Hawaii this year I booked my FF tickets at the 330 day window and chose seats a few rows behind first class. They also had power ports to help keep our 5 & 8 year old kids entertained on computer and DVD player during the long flight.

A week or so before the trip I was checking and they had moved us to the back of the plane in two groups of two on different sides of the plane. Needless to say, I was highly upset. No one at AA could or would do anything. I still can't understand how seats reserved over 10 months previously could just be taken away.

Anyway, we called early the day of the flight and moved back together to the bulk head seats behind first class. Better but it made it hard for the little one to get a nap with the tray in the arm rest.

To add insult to injury, AA had cut meals on the flight apparently about they same time the lost my seats. They had some lousy snack boxes they sold but DFW to HNL w/o a meal!!

On another trip to Hawaii we had our connecting flight to DFW canceled w/no word from the airline. Fortunately, I stayed on top of things and got things straightened out before it was too late. I agree, stay on top of things especially with the state of the airline industry now.

[Dee in California]

Even if you are at the airport, you have to keep checking.

I got the Logan International (Boston) to see my sister off on her flight back from Cape Cod, then had 4 1/2 hours to kill before my own flight. My flight was "on time" on the screen. Seems the minute I turned my back from the screen, they must have cancelled it, because I spent the next 3 1/2 hours wandering around town near the airport finding things to do with a very tired 7-year-old, only to discover an hour before take-off (8:00 P.M.) that we were not going anywhere!!

Lovely evening, really. Got on a later flight out of Boston connecting D.C. then to San Fran, only to discover that the flight was late, we missed our connection in D.C., and that was the last flight out. Our luggage, of course, was on the original cancelled flight and was in its late-night way to Oakland, through some mysterious decision of the airline. Stuck in D.C. for the night, at 10:45, with my 7-year-old. Oh yes, and all the airport hotel shuttles stop running at 10:00. Crawled out for a 6:45 flight the next morning through Denver, which we almost missed due to security getting very hung up on me in the metal detector. Wow, that child of mine is a trooper! Not a whimper out of her.

[EileenSRN]

We just had a similar experience with US air. We purchased our tickets for President's Week in late October. Stopped into our little local airport to be "looked at" and got exit row seats. On Thursday I saw that the fare for my flight went down, but the times weren't the same (flt #'s matched). Checked on line and found that the times had changed by 2 hours later going out and 4 hours earlier coming back. They also changed the plane type, so while the seat #'s stayed the same, they weren't exit rows anymore. We called and had to give up our direct return in order to not get up with the birds on our way home. And I bet it will all change again after the first of the year when new schedules come out.
Check, check and check again....
Eileen

[BevL]

Originally Posted by sfwilshire

I went online to check on our flight to Hawaii for next June because I'm still shopping for tickets for two of my kids and didn't have the schedule handy. I found that they had changed one of our flights, so we were arriving in Atlanta four hours after we were to depart from Atlanta. HUH???

I immediately called Delta and they resolved that issue (with only an hour or so of extra inconvenience to us), but you'd think the original schedule change would have caused some computer or person to raise the red flag on our routing.

Guess I'll be checking often between now and June.

Sheila

This thread inspired me to check our FF flights for Feb to Hawaii. Yep, same thing, they had us flying out of LA before we arrived from Vancouver, due to flight changes.

I was told to keep checking back as there will no doubt be further flight changes. As it is, this round has added two hours onto our stop at LA, from three to five hours.

Bev

[2hokies]

And I thought it was just me! It's happened to us on two trips to Hawaii, to my parents as well to HI (different airline) and then on our upcoming trip to Aruba this coming Sunday. I checked the flights last week and I will have my husband call AGAIN Friday or Saturday. They used to show up on "My Itineraries" for United, but since all the flights are freq. flier codeshare on USAir, none of them are showing up anymore (lady on the phone said they still should but I see nothing). I'll be sure to have hubby sit here and read TUG while he's on hold this time.

[EileenSRN]

At least I can see the changes with Itineries/Receipts. They show the old and the new. And it's not just HI. Ours is an Orlando flight.

[Andi]

Had a similar experience in flying to Calgary on American. Had made plans to drive from Calgary to Jasper as the plane was supposed to get in around noon. Without any prior notifacation when we arrived at the airport our flight had been cancelled. Six hours later we finally were able to reschedule but it put us getting into our motel at 3:00 A. M.

Andi

[Elli]

Originally Posted by BevL

This thread inspired me to check our FF flights for Feb to Hawaii. Yep, same thing, they had us flying out of LA before we arrived from Vancouver, due to flight changes.

I was told to keep checking back as there will no doubt be further flight changes. As it is, this round has added two hours onto our stop at LA, from three to five hours.

Bev

Isn't that the pits, Bev, when the airlines change flights on you. We had originally booked Aloha for our trip to Hawaii this Oct. because they had a day time flight coming back, instead of the red eye as the others have. Then Aloha decided not to fly out of Vanc. any more and switched us to United. United changed their schedule, and we had a stopover in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver. Now there will be flights out of Kelowna, but they weren't even announced yet when we booked ours.