Originally Posted by
Adam Smith
I haven't looked at the schedule, so you may be right, assuming the delay occurs very close to the time of your flight. But if a delay is posted in advance, it may be possible to re-route you early enough to get one of those other AC flights. There are also quite a few flights between ORD and YYZ, so if you're at the airport early enough, they may be able to just put you on an earlier ORD-YYZ and keep your original flight to NRT. Just stay vigilant and keep an eye on your options.
Unless it's a situation like a huge, predicted-days-in-advance winter storm, it's pretty unlikely to see AC announce enough of a delay on an ORD-YYZ - in advance - that they're willing to re-ticket a non-status passenger on a Basic fare, before their first flight was even scheduled to depart.
...the strategy of arriving early enough to try and hop one of the earlier ORD-YYZ legs is definitely worth trying, though again, unless they're trying to get people moved in advance of incoming weather, that Basic fare may prove to be the stumbling block.