Originally Posted by
Raymoland
Hi all,
Experienced flying but in a pickle. Booked in paid first/Polatis SEA-DUB on Thursday, party of 4. SEA-EWR is delayed 10 hours so will miss our connections (I thought a 5 hours layover would cover most eventualities but this is a crew rest issue). Need to be in DUB as soon as possible but the rebooking engine is giving us a Saturday departure as the earliest possible option and that's in economy. The first available business itinerary is a Monday departure.
Will UA rebook on other airlines and if so, which ones? Any chance Aer Lingus? I have no status.
UA will be fairly flexible about rebooking on most other major airlines in my experience, but the non-stop Seattle→Dublin doesn't seem to be a thing right now so most of your options are going to suck if you want to get a party of 4 in business. I'd get on the phone now, but my experience is that agents at checkin are more flexible than phone agents - if you can't get a good outcome on the phone then turning up at your original checkin time and dealing with an airport agent may improve things, but does potentially mean you're going to end up spending a *lot* of time there and that may not be fun with a large party. Your best bet is really going to depend on how much you prioritise getting to Dublin over inconvenience, I'm afraid.
(It looks like your best realistic bet for Thursday would be redeye SEA→ORD→DUB but with 10 hours in Chicago and arriving in Dublin at 5AM on Saturday morning - alternatively you could leave Friday lunchtime, have a couple of hours in SFO and take the Aer Lingus flight to arrive at 11AM on Saturday. Check your options on Google Flights before calling in and be ready to explicitly ask whether they can put you on the flights you prefer)