We booked award travel to Slovenia next summer using our NWA miles, and there have already been some schedule changes to our reservation. All of our flights are still legal, but some of the connections are a little tight for comfort.

Here’s our current routing:
Air France: Ljubljana to Paris: 7:30 am – 9:30 am
Air France: Paris to Madrid: 10:40 am – 12:45 pm
Air Europa: Madrid to JFK: 3:15 pm – 6:00 pm

It should be noted that our routing was a little less than ideal (with 1 extra stop) due to stingy award availability.

I’m most concerned about the 1:10 in Paris. If we missed the scheduled Paris to Madrid flight on AF, the next flight would only get us to Madrid 35 minutes before the Air Europa flight to the US. (The original Air Europe flight time was 1 hour later, so I thought we’d be ok if we missed the first Paris-Madrid flight because we’d still have a 1:35 connection in Madrid.)

What would happen if we missed one of our connections? And who would help us, as none of the flights in question are on Delta/NWA?

Is there any chance that Delta/NWA would try to open up more award availability (and give us a better routing) if I called them?

In theory, you’d think we’d be in good shape because we’re in Paris and Madrid – airports with many flights to NYC - fairly early in the day. But I can see how we might not get much help given that we're 1) on award seats 2) on partners airlines 3) on presumably full flights in July.

Thanks in advance for you suggestions.