Hey guys I have a bit of a weird situation. One of my travels ends in ATL on AA (one of those Hawaii deals) but I want to get back to STL the same day. The flight arrives in ATL at 6:03pm. There is a flight at 7:03pm connecting through ORD but that's the last one of the day to get to STL.

I called AA to ask if this would be ok since they would end up being separate tickets (I already purchased the other ticket -unfortunately - so I cannot combine the itineraries through a travel agent) and they essentially said no, it is not appropriate (yes exact words) that I am even thinking about giving myself less than 3 hours of connection time. So no help there..

If my previous leg gets delayed and I missed the 7:03 flight to ORD, would AA help me re-book or would they just say - hey we told you to book something with greater than 3 hours connection time and leave me hanging?

There are other options (such as DL and SWA) that leave later but I thought I would have a better chance of re-accommodation for delays if I was on the same airline.

Thoughts? Thanks for your input.