Do I have any chance of making this itinerary work?
Background: I am helping some friends plan a trip to Europe next summer. Would love to ride up front. She has enough miles (or will) for 3 one-way J rewards, he has enough for 1. So not possible to book RT, have to be 4 OW tickets.
They are flying out of YBC. Going I can piecemeal an itinerary with an overnight in YUL. However, the return is the problem. I've found the perfect LX seats for the return, but my problem is that the ZRH-YUL flight arrives at 15:10, and the YUL-YBC flight leaves at 15:40. AE isn't even giving this as a possibility, so I'm going to assume 30 minutes is under minimum connection time. However, there's only one daily flight to YBC, which means waiting until the next day puts them over the 24-hour connection time. I'm pretty sure there's a 'next flight' provision that would allow for an exemption from the 24h rule, but would that same-day flight screw this up, even if it isn't a valid connection? I have visions of a sort of 'Who's on first' conversation with AE:
-"We can't book you, 30 min. isn't enough time"
-"So book me on the next day's flight"
-"But it exceeds the 24-hour connection time"
-"Isn't there a provision for next available flight?"
-"Yes, but there's an earlier flight"
-"Then book me on that one"
-"We can't book you on that flight, 30 min. isn't enough time"...
Is there any way of booking this?