BThumme

Had one of "those" days with AA yesterday.

Flying (VIE)-LHR-LAX-DEN. Early in the morning, LHR-LAX was delayed initially 1 hr 45 minutes (our inbound was supposed to be from Miami, but got changed to from LAX, I believe due to an AA cancellation at LHR).

I had given myself a 3.5 hour connection at LAX so I could try out the Qantas lounge, not because I don't trust AA's OTP. Anyways, I noticed the inbound was still a bit ways out, and not expecting to have an AA 773 be turned around in 10-15 minutes, tried to see if I could be rerouted on AA 6170 (BA 219, nontstop to DEN). The AA lounge folks said they wouldn't do that because I had plenty of time in LA to connect.

At the gate, I had asked another agent (I don't know what the persons role was, there's lots of people in the gate area) the same question, and he told me it would cost me $400 to make the change. He asked what I was worried about and I said My 4 hour connection was down to 2, and within that 2 I would need to deplane (at TBIT), go through immigration, change terminals, , re clear security, and then take another shuttle bus to the remote terminal to board the last flight of the night to Denver. He said MCT was 90 minutes at LAX so I was fine (which BTW I did end up violating).

We took off a little over 2 hours late, and of course once we landed in LAX, waited on the ground for 45 minutes since we had another AA plane at our gate. My almost 4 hour connection now down to 1. I ended up making it only due to the fact I have Global Entry, know the layout of LAX, and hustled.

I don't think my request was unreasonable (especially as an Executive Plat too). The Lounge Agent at LHR did confirm that there was space available, but his manger was the one who said no.

I don't think looking for a reroute with a 2 hour delay is unreasonable (onto an AA codeshare), especially when there was the possibility of more delays, since AA doesn't like to post delays until right before departure.

So unless I want to make sure I build in multi-hour connections at airports, when is it reasonable to start asking for reaccomodations? United was pretty good to me in this regard, with delays after an hour allowing me to start looking at options automatically on the app. In my scenario, I was trying to be proactive, but got nowhere. If an initial 2 hour delay isn't appropriate to ask for assistance, what is? Only when you are guaranteed to miss a connection?