Originally Posted by jtav559

Bit of a mystery for my compadres here at FT:

Have 2 MileSAAver reservations covering 3 people, in First, SMF-DFW-BNA.

Original schedule was a red-eye out of SMF, getting to BNA by 10:30am. Got a schedule change email last night that moved our departure back to 6am out of SMF, short connection in Dallas, arriving at 2:15pm in BNA. Almost 4 hours difference in arrival time and almost 5 hours later a departure.

1st call was going well, and we were exploring a slightly earlier red-eye SMF-CLT-BNA arriving close to the original arrival time but was disconnected while on hold for the agent to speak with the help desk. Called back went through the rigamarole again with a different agent. She said the help desk would not open inventory for me to take the preferred new routing. I did a quick EF check and the cabins are wide open right now, J7+ on the legs I requested, some Saaver inventory on 1 of the legs but the other was zero'd out.

I was offered an even earlier evening flight SMF-LAX-BNA arriving at like 4:45am and that just is not going to work for a variety of reasons.

I will HUCA this weekend and hope for some luck, but am I right in firmly requesting my preferred re-routing since it is well north of 90 or 120 mins worth of a schedule change, and what I am requesting is the closest resemblance to my original routing? What is the magic trick for the help desk (or RM in reality) to open the required inventory for my preferred rerouting?