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.
Anything needing to touch the NE on today is going to be a disaster. Inventory on basically every airline is scarce for the entire day, for even one person, let alone a party of 4. What I like to do in this situation to gather alternative ideas to present to agents is go to google flights, put the origin and final destination, set it for one way, and choose the number in the party/cabin. Let google do the hard work to give you the crazy itineraries to try to make it work (google will try and give you spoke-hub-spoke-hub connections if there aren't any hub-hub itineraries which the airlines systems would suggest). When we do that for your specific scenario, it shows just how bleak getting from SEA-DUB is for 4 people in Business today.
I don't know how flexible your party is, but if you're willing to divide into 2 parties of 2, your options go up significantly. For example, if you get a willing agent, 2 of you can get routed on DL/AF via CDG, and the other 2 on DL/KLM via AMS. Or 2 go via ORD on UA/Aer Lingus, which again they might be
more willing to rebook on OA if they can keep at least some of your party on UA. I haven't played with these combinations extensively, but if you can find routings on Lufthansa to go via FRA or MUC, that can also be a route to look into and would be
much easier to get UA to rebook you on LH then hoping for an agent willing to do OA.
Originally Posted by
Raymoland
Will UA rebook on other airlines and if so, which ones? Any chance Aer Lingus? I have no status.
Yes and no. If it's truly crew, then it is likely a controllable delay so they
should be more willing to book on other airlines, and if your business I think even if is uncontrollable like weather then they can still consider doing other airlines (although MUCH less likely). Key is the other airline needs to get you there substantially closer to your original arrival time then whatever option UA is able to provide.