December 20, 2015: We have an award roundtrip to MXP in June. Outbound was CLE-IAD-ZRH-MXP. The ZHR-MXP connection is 95 minutes. That leg's schedule changed: now it departs Washington 15 minutes later but is still scheduled to arrive at the same time in Zurich. Thus the connection time did not change.
Nevertheless, I called United. I politely expressed concern that 95 minutes is very short for a connection to another airline at a foreign airport. (Of course, that shouldn't have mattered because my original booking had the same 95-minute connection.) Surprisingly, the rep agreed and moved us onto the EWR-MXP nonstop. Thus the outbound is now CLE-EWR-MXP. Thank you, United!
Moral of the story: There doesn't have to be a 2-hour change to alter a booking. It just takes guts.
RNE, gutsy.
So, today a change on the return leg occurred reducing the international connection at EWR to 40 minutes. I used this squeaker as justification to call UA and cajole them into opening up award space on the MXP-EWR nonstop. Thus, my original 6-segment, itinerary (which, as noted above, I previously reduced to 5) is now four segments. Can't do any better than that, based in CLE. ^
RNE, opining that schedule changes can be your friend.