Harmoncove

Tommorrow my wife is flying from Newark to Panama to Guyaquil EC. If she would of flown Yesterday or today she would of been late for her connecting flight to GYE. I'm not to confident right now. The United website says the delay is due to "Aircraft preparation". If this happpens tomorrow she will miss her 9:08pm flight out of Panama. The next flight from Panama to GYE is 9:09am the next morning. This is all booked through United and is a Star Alliance flight.

Not being experienced in International travel how is this handled by the airline? Will she stuck in the airport overnight waiting for the next flight?

Thanks in advance..!

nigos

My best guess is she would need to overnight in Panama and assuming space is available would fly the 9 am flight the next morning to GYE.

Kacee

If UA causes her to overnight for any reason other than weather, UA is obligated under its contract of carriage to provide her with a hotel at PTY. She should be able to get a voucher from a UA agent at the airport; if she can't, she should book her own and then submit the receipt to UA for reimbursement.

There are at least two hotels close to the airport, the Crowne Plaza and the Riande. I would recommend one of those over taking a taxi into Panama City, as that costs a minimum of $30 each way.

Often1

1. Just to be clear, is she on one ticket from EWR to GYE or is she on separate tickets transferring itineraries at PTY?

2. Presuming that she is on a single ticket, UA's obligations are substantially different than stated above. Unless the delay causing the misconnect is within UA's control, UA is not obligated to provide anything. That is far broader than "weather" and could provide many other things such as ATC and government formalities.

3. The COC are far different than stated above. UA expressly states that if it is responsible for the overnight, it will either provide a voucher for a hotel or a credit for use on future UA travel. It will no longer reimburse for a hotel. The maximum credit is determined by UA, not the passenger.

These are of course UA's contractual obligations. A GS flying on a full-fare premium ticket will likely be treated differently than a non-FF traveling on the base level Y ticket. But, those are customer service, not contractual matters.

All of this suggests that if financial issues are a concern, make sure that your wife has travel insurance which covers the situation. She would then not need to worry about where she stays or what she spends (up to the limits of what is reimbursed).

docbert

What class is she in, and does she have any status with *A? (The rules for business class or *G are different than economy/no status)

Is she a US citizen, or the citizen of a country that does not require a visa for Panama?

Harmoncove

She is a US citizen flying in economy and she is close to becoming premier silver.

Harmoncove

Thanks for the great info!

itsallgood

The PTY-GYE flight is Copa. If there are enough passengers on the EWR-PTY flight, Copa may delay the flight a bit so that they can get the EWR passengers on the flight. I don't know if that's Copa's policy; most US airlines will hold a flight (especially the last flight of the day) for delayed passengers if the connection time isn't too great. The rule of thumb that I've seen is 10 minutes per 10 passengers. So if there were 20 passengers connecting to GYE, they may delay the flight 20 minutes to get those passenger onboard.

Have a backup plan in case your wife misconnects. A room at the Crowne Plaza runs around $115 for tomorrow night. I used a few of the hotel booking websites (hotels.com, expedia, etc) - they don't do a good job of showing hotels near the airport. The best I found was google. https://www.google.com/search?q=hotels+near+pty
I used Hotels near PTY for my search. Of the results, it looks like there are Crowne Plaza and 3 local hotels nearby. There's a Courtyard that's 5 miles from the airport.

Harmoncove

Thanks..!

docbert

And her travel insurance will cover the cost if United doesn't.

She does have travel insurance, right?

iflyuaaa

do some credit cards offer free travel insurance? which ones? might be helpful

Harmoncove

We always buy travel insurance but travel insurance guy suggested I call my CC company first since she is just flying home and they have socialized medical care there, Any trip interruption or cancellation among other things will be covered as I have come to learn.

Often1

What does socialized medical care have to do with hotels?

In any event, she always needs a backup plan. What would you do if there were no insurance, neither carrier will provide a hotel and the room will cost US$115?

Harmoncove

If she didn't have access to this He would of advised me to purchase travel insurance.

Last night I went over my scenario with my CC's benefits center and was told if the 1st leg of the intineray is delayed causing her to miss her connection the benefit would cover her for hotel and meals. I asked him note this conversation on my account.

50Kthehardway

In 2014, we were flying EWR-PTY-CTG. Massive storms from below PTY to EWR delayed everything. Were supposed to connect to a Copa flight at 9:30PM but arrived after pretty much all connections left PTY. United had our hotel vouchers/rebookings as we deplaned. We all had to turn in our passports and they marched us en masse through a special immigration line, then boarded a bus and were taken to a hotel. Got checked in around 2:00 AM.

They originally had me on the first connection to CTG, but I asked to switch to a later one to get some sleep instead of maybe two before heading back to the airport. I'm usually a big proponent of taking the first flight before everything goes awry, the extra sleep helped a ton.

Fortunately, they the hotel had 24 hour dining/bar and Panama takes USD so I could get a beer

I also called my destination hotel. Had to pay for the missed night, but wanted to make sure they didn't cancel my reservation.