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Pegasus771 and to everyone else like us who have AC bookings that are locked, frozen, greyed-out or whatever description you want to call it:
To deal with this morning's notification of a 5 minute schedule change, I called AC. And yes, I am aware that my status does make a difference in helping me get through.
Based on the conversation, any and every schedule change of even 1 minute will lock the file. This is how she described it: the agents will see a flag on the booking. When we call in, they see the schedule change, make the change to the booking which can release the flag and it unlocks the booking. It is the system’s way of telling the agents that the customer is aware of the change. Whether some here think she made it up or not, my experience has been that unless you call in, you won't be able to clean up your booking.
I've spoken to other people who keep getting multiple changes to bookings and it is indeed a major hassle or nightmare to call in for each one.
If your changes are just a few minutes to the flight time, and it doesn't impact another flight and your trip is way off, perhaps wait before calling.
We all understand the challenge if you are in the middle of a trip, or if the change impacts a connection or if there is a flight cancellation and you can't rebook online, you may have no other choice but to call in. Or as someone suggested in another thread, maybe use a TA or OTA for now.
YMMV.