Trying to see potential silver lining here:

If it were me, I'd just keep taking this route, budgeting time accordingly for the delay, and purchase the flight on Citi Prestige due to their amazing $500 trip delay benefit after only 3 hours delay. Lots of stories out their show that the insurance adjusters via this benefit are very generous on reimbursing just about anything, and the claims process frequently taking 24 hours from claim to reimbursement. Taking that into account, great way to finance one's holiday gift shopping list. @:-)

Slight eye roll at my own post for that one...