I don't think this complaint is limited to WN. We had a UA cancellation last year and the online system would only allow us to switch from a 10am nonstop to a redeye connection that left at midnight routing SFO-IAH-xxx. The solution in all these cases is to call the airline (admittedly this makes us angry when the wait time is 1+ hour to fix a problem created by the airline) and use the hold time to research potentially better options.
I gather airline IT systems are programmed with certain variables. For example if flights are available within 2 hours earlier of original ETD it would select those flights, otherwise go to the next available nonstop flight or perhaps a connection that arrives before the next nonstop. Unfortunately the IT is not smart enough to figure out that some people do not want a 6am departure, or a redeye connection, or would rather leave a day early than lose a day off their vacation or miss an event, or in most cases to permit you to select a reasonable replacement that meets your needs.
One thing we have noticed is that
status matters, at least as far as the IT programming. Just before the pandemic Mrs. B received notice of a cancelled OAK-SNA flight. The WN system re-booked her for a flight 24+ hours later, which would have shaved a full day off a 2-day trip to Disneyland. However our A+ list friend (and his family) were immediately rebooked on a same-day nonstop flight to SNA, Of course all the nonstops were now sold out for 24 hours due to the cancellation.
Originally Posted by
xooz
Couldn't find a great thread for my specific question, but... is it possible to make a change to the destination after a disruptive schedule change? For example, can I change ATL-LGB to ATL-LAX? It doesn't appear to allow this online. I will call if there is some chance for success.
Yes, Using the example above, I called WN and requested (instructed?!) that they rebook Mrs. B + child to a same day OAK-LAX flight which had plenty of seats. After escalating, the CSR manager agreed to an "exception" to waive the fare difference (how gracious given that the original cancellation was 100% fault of WN, not weather or ATC). Following an email to customer service, WN agreed to provide a $50 voucher as a one-time courtesy to cover the rideshare from LAX to orange county.
In my UA example, we reached a telephone CSR who agreed to change our routing to connection via LAX with a forced overnight (and also had to get a supervisor to provide an "exception" to the fare difference even though UA had cancelled the flight a month in advance of travel and the replacement was vastly inferior).