Originally Posted by
ATOBTTR
Even in my preferred scenario (taking AA or B6 up to LAS then the DL redeye to LAS), the risk here is that OP is not protected in terms of getting to CVG from LAS if he runs into issues on LAX-LAS on another carrier. On the F9 BUR/SNA-LAS-CVG option, OP would at least be fully protected and eventually make it to Cincinnati by F9, even if late for the meeting. OP could also do DL LAX-LAS and then LAS-CVG but 44 min is a tight window (though certainly manageable if things run on time) and at least DL would (most likely) protect OP onward to Cincinnati even if he/she ran into issues on LAX-LAS, unless DL looked at the tickets and determined these tickets somehow violated some rule by not permitting enough time or something.
I don't think there is much protection on any carrier. Sure, they might get you there, but it will be too late, likely much too late. Given the constraints, significant delays or a misconnect and you are SOL, regardless of how it is booked. The best protection would be to have 2 discrete paths. Assuming it is very important to the OP to be in person for a Sunday 8am meeting, I'd do the connection at LAS via AA/B6/WN then on to DL as a primary, but buy the LAX-IND ticket as a back up. With no change fees, if you cancel, you have a full credit to use and are only giving DL a short term small interest free loan. If LAX-LAS goes sideways you'll have time to jump to the much later LAX-IND flight.