Originally Posted by
mogsta22
Please be gentle with me as I am quite new around here and not a very experienced flier. I am currently looking at flights to get my sister and I to New Orleans (MSY) using Avios and some money. I want this to be special for us as my sister lost her husband recently and I am treating her to this trip which includes a caribbean cruise (and myself of course) to sort of make up for things that happened long ago and to make her feel special.
There are a number of flights being presented to me to choose from but the timing of the flight from LHR to ORD at 16.05 appeals greatly since my sister lives in the Swansea area and will be using National Express to get from there to the airport and home again. Many of the flights to the USA leave so early she would have to travel the day before and this would mean an overnight hotel for her. Not to mention extra cost for me as I feel a night at LHR is a night wasted.
The flight in question is BA 297 and due to arrive at ORD 18:45 and we would connect to an AA flight to MSY at 20:15 giving us exactly 90 minutes to make this transfer which will, I understand, involve clearing immigration, collecting baggage, clearing customs and changing terminal. Is this workable or would we be better to either stay overnight at ORD or to get a flight earlier from LHR possibly to a different entry point?
I am still at the planning stage and very much open to suggestion on this. Thanks in advance to any of you who have thoughts on this.
Hello
mogsta22. A 'welcome' to FlyerTalk isn't that appropriate as I can see you've been a member for many years but congrats on your first post. I would agree with other posters above that 90 minutes is cutting it fine.
As others have said above, if you are on a single ticket that includes the connection then the airline will take care of you if you miss the connection. However, if you're not a regular flier you might find that a bit stressful especially if you end up needing to stay overnight if the onward flight is the last one of the day.
If you can find another routing that allows perhaps another hour of connection time you should be OK.
Please do post your thoughts on this thread and I'm sure other members will be happy to provide more advice as you work your way through the planning process.