This thread is making me nauseous. I booked a paid J flight to JNB at the end of August, and padded my schedule for 3 nights before my safari starts. I had to take a double-connection to EWR in order to get a reasonably priced fare. I booked it with the expectation of mis-connecting in EWR and actually flying out the next night and having 2 nights’ buffer. The OP’s experience is giving me nightmares of a misconnect on Day 1 and a cancellation in EWR on Day 2. I will be armed with the TK info, and will rely on the experts here to pitch in and “get” me to JNB!