Originally Posted by
maxdude1027
Hi I was originally planned flying from Brisbane to Chicago via YVR end of the year on AC but because of some circumstances I have to delay my travel by few days.
So I'm looking at the ticket price right now and the price I paid for my ticket is already insanely expensive and now if I want to change to few days later AC wants to charge me another 1.2k which I definitely don't want to pay.
Then I realised if I change the ticket to YVR only, and buy a separate YVR-ORD ticket I only have to pay $200 more which I'm ok with.
Given both tickets are with the same airline normally there wouldn't be any issues with checking my bags all the way to destination but because this is my first ever time transferring and pre-clearing US customs in YVR I'm not sure whether this would encounter any issues. (also I'm entering US on J1 visa)
I tried to google it but couldn't find any similar answers.
Any help is appreciated.
Welcome to FT!
The big risk of buying two separate tickets is that you have no protection if something happens to the first flight. Obviously the size of this risk is dependent on the time between the two flights ... if you're planning to spend the night in Vancouver then the risk becomes quite small ... but it's not unheard of, for flights to be 4, 5, or even 6+ hours late. What if the inbound flight from YVR to BNE is delayed by that much - then your flight from BNE to YVR will also be delayed. If your connection time in YVR is less than that time, then you'll miss the flight to ORD.
If you have a single ticket from BNE to ORD, then it's AC's responsibility to get to you ORD - even if one of the flights is late. However, if you have two separate tickets then it's
your responsibility to get to YVR on time to catch the second flight. It doesn't matter if you were late because your inbound flight was late ... if you hold two separate tickets, then the risk is now on you.
If you do miss the second flight then you could try to argue, and depending on the mood of the agent (and whether or not there are any open spaces on later flights) you
might be ok ... but there's absolutely no guarantees. If you hold two separate tickets, then the risk is on you.