Originally Posted by
Klems
And chances are that if it's 3 hours late or more, I'll know it already at JFK so I can cancel the award flight and find another solution (unless things go wrong in the air with a mechanical issue, which is not out of question with the A380
).
Even if something went wrong in the air that would result in a 3+ hour delay, I do not think that you would stay up in the air and would instead make an unscheduled landing somewhere, at which point you would probably be able to call to retime or cancel the award.
You could, though end up in a dilemma situation of a 2+hours delay on departure, where you could not be sure whether you would land in time to make the connection or not. But, frankly, we are talking about relatively low probability events and where the downside (losing a cheap award flight) is also pretty low: it is not as if you stand to lose a non-flex long-haul premium class flight ticket so I would not sweat it if I were you.