Originally Posted by
eng3
How reliable is it to take a flight the night before I need to be at my destination (in the morning)? I might need to fly in 2-3 weeks. I've been looking at flight status and notice some flights cancelled. Is UA cancelling flights that fall under a certain load threshold? I'm trying to determine if I should take an earlier flight that day or possibly an additional day earlier.
I would definitely schedule a flight for earlier in the day you are traveling if you need to be their NLT than the next morning. Most schedule related cancellations are happening within 2-3 days of travel. You will get an email & notification on your phone if anything happens to your flight. It has happened to me several times & I had no problems rescheduling on my own or calling in for help rebooking.
If you get within 36 hours of your flight, you can be pretty confident that the schedule for the next day will fly as advertised. In that case, you can easily SDC your morning flight to a more convenient afternoon flight. Note that there are very few evening flights now.
Note: This all depends on your origin/destination. Hub to hub has more options and is more stable right now.