Originally Posted by
FTaddict
So I ended up booking outbound on Uniter and return on American.
However I have 2 questions:
1) Outbound flight is from Los Angeles to Phoenix to Chicago to Amman (Jordan) to Baghdad.
The layover in Phoenix is only 1 hour 10 minutes. So in case the flight gets delayed or anything I can miss my flight from Phoenix to Chicago, right? The layover in Chicago however is 4.5 hours so maybe I should be able to pick another flight from Phoenix? Are these type of short layovers before a long duration international flight preferrable/common?
2) My return flight is Baghdad to Istanbul to Chicago to Los Angeles. The layover in Istanbul is only 55 minutes so again I have the concern of short layover and missing the flight as mentioned above.
Looks like we don't have many options available for Award tickets. Am I worrying for no reason?
For your outbound, I wouldn't worry about the connection, if you're remotely on time then you have plenty of time to connect. If you miss it there is another flight 2 hours later that still gives you plenty of time, now if that one has any seats in F on day of departure is another story but you'd get to ORD.
For the return, I've done a similarly tight connection in IST, fortunately my arrival was long haul and arrived early. I even had time for a shower in the lounge before my connecting flight. In your case it's going to be VERY tight since you're arrival is regional, so there is really no arriving early, if its late at all you'll miss it and TK is horrible about dealing with irregular operations. On a UA issued award they may insist that UA does the reroute even though they already have control of the ticket and its their responsibility. Probably if that happens it's going to end up with you spending an unexpected day in Istanbul since there is only 1 IST-ORD per day, frankly I'd be looking at other options since the flight from BGW arrives too late to connect to other US bound flights unless you wait around for the late flight to JFK, but even that forces an overnight in NY as the first PS flight isn't until 6am if you can get on it. Only other *A flight though I see is MS and that flight timing is no more convenient for connecting direct to the US, requiring a night in Cairo.
You could spend a hand full of Avios and take the RJ flight BGW back to AMM where you'd have a wee hours LH flight timed much more favorably. LH flights often open up at T-14 or so for C cabins, sometimes F too.