Originally Posted by SquarePeg

I booked a first class round trip award seat for a flight in September. I recently noticed that my return flight was changed from a 430pm departure to a 11am departure. This won't work for me as I have an appointment in the morning and would not be able to make it to the airport in time for that early of a departure. I see one later flight at 1:15pm that I might be able to make if I change some other plans around but this would be a real pita involving other people also changing their plans. Or, I could completely change my trip and book into/out of a different airport and change my travel dates a bit.

1 - are there cancellation penalties if I outright cancel an AA award booking? I cannot recall if I booked the "web special" or the standard award option. I do not think I booked the "special" but I do not get an option to change my flight, only to cancel when I look at my booking on the website. I haven't clicked on the cancel button as I don't want to do anything irrevocable until I know what my options are. Will it just cancel or will it give me a chance to confirm the cancel after reading the warnings/penalties/fees etc?

2 - would I be able to use the unacceptable flight change as a reason to force a full cancel with no penalties? Is there a set number of hours that they need to stay within for me to have to accept the change? I just booked this last week and it's not until September and suddenly the available flight times are all different - it looks like it was the connection flight that got eliminated. Also a bit annoyed that I wasn't notified of the change, I had to find it on my own.

3 - If I can't cancel outright, can I make them change the return flight to a more acceptable flight time?

TIA for your assistance