At the earliest possible moment last spring I booked four AA award tickets (F to HNL) for travel this March from my BA account. (Note that the airlines are really irrelevant to the story).

When I originally booked the tickets, AA had a non-stop STL-HNL in place that gave us about 2.5 hours to make the flight from our inbound connection. All was good until AA canceled their STL-HNL flight. AA automatically rebooked us on the first of two DFW-HNL flights (still in F). Now, however, our connection time has collapsed to 65 minutes. (AA Connection to AA)

My worry is that if we don't make the connection--which is possible in the spring months w/ lousy weather--we could miss our flight and 4 F class seats.

I called AA and BA to inquire whether we could move our 4 seats to the later DFW-HNL flight but was told that there were no F award seats available on that flight. My logic was that if we gave up 4 seats on the early flight we could talk them into moving us--afterall it nets out to the same--but no luck.

So...what happens if we don't make our connection? Any suggestions about how to minimize the possibility? I did think about seeing if we could fly to DFW the night before. Not convenient but perhaps worthwhile...

Again, it's not an airline specific question but rather...WHAT HAPPENS IF AN AWARD BOOKING IN F DOESN'T HAPPEN? Looking for thoughts, advice, etc.

Many thanks!