I have booked 6 (elderly 65+) pax on a bmi redemption from Zurich to San Francisco via Chicago and then onwards to Las Vegas four days later.
We have recently received a schedule change notification stating that the UA907 flight has been retimed 25 minutes earlier meaning that the passengers only have 1 hour 25 minutes to connect from International to Domestic, though the minimum connection time is stated as 1 hour 30 minutes (and even then I'd say it was pushing it).
Here is the itinerary as it currently stands:
LX008 :: Zurich (1255) - Chicago T5 (1535) :: Business
<< connection 1hr 25mins >>
UA907 :: Chicago T3 (1700) - San Francisco (1956) :: Business
And onwards to Vegas four days later...
Problems:
1. There are 6 pax and you all know how difficult it can be to co-ordinate an itinerary for all pax to fly together on award bookings.
2. They are all aged between 65-75 and they don't like the long flights. The itinerary is perfect as it is, adding another flight would really make a mockery of everything.
3. All subsequent United flights from Chicago to San Francisco are two class aircraft with no J or F availability.
The even bigger problem: The blasted call centre! 
I must have rang at leasat half a dozen times to try and resolve this issue. And on four of those occasions the agent has put the phone down. Admittedly I had the same arguement twice with the very same agent.
The minimum connection time (MCT) for International to Domestic at Chicago O'Hare is 1 hour 30 minutes. Having explained that there was an illegal connection, the call centre agent unsurprisingly quoted a MCT of 1 hour 25 minutes although he later retracted that and agreed that is was indeed 90 minutes which in turn received the response of "it's only a five minute difference" followed by "there's nothing to worry about, you won't need to reclaim your bags as they'll be tagged all the way to San Francisco". Not only is the latter statement incorrect, but the complete disregard with the minimum connection times is completely unacceptable.
I have contacted United Airlines to query the minimum connection time at ORD and they did indeed confirm that changes need to be made to the reservation. Of course, there was no point in relaying this information to Pune because they appear only to conform only to their own set of rules and regulations. The fact that I have had to spend the best part of five hours trying to bring remedy to this itinerary without success is completely unacceptable. Unfortunately this is becoming the norm with what is nothing less than an incompetent bunch of cretins.
Possible solutions?
There were six seats on the Swiss flight from Zurich to Chicago leaving Zurich a day earlier which i tried to grab on Friday - the availability is now down to four and is subsequently useless. Two days earlier there are seven seats available which I am now looking to grab - this would mean a second stopover, albeit an involuntary one by all counts (and not necessarily wanted). I came across the obstacle that is Dennis this evening who claimed that we could not bring forward the dates of the flights (and there was no mention of the second stopover at this point). He insisted that we could only make changes departing on the same day or a day later - but not a day earlier.
Questions
A. Am I being unreasonable in asking to bring forward the ZRH-ORD flights two days earlier (purely downt to availability) which would force a second stopover? The ICC have no better solution.
B. UA have stated that pax booked in J on a 3 class plane would be put in domestic first class were they to misconnect. Likelyhood of F being available on the day is unlikely (although it is a 767 with 30+ F seats). Can the proper staff at BD liase with UA to get them booked into domestic F on the later flight? You'd have thought it would be UA who would have reaccommodate you given they've made the changes.
C. What options, realistically, are open to us? Are we tied to award inventory even when there's been an involuntary schedule change?
Any advice appreciated.