Originally Posted by Tennisbum
NoStressHere, you're absolutely right that 1 hour and 20 minutes is normally plenty of time to make a connection from a domestic flight to an international flight.
What I didn't make clear is that in my experience (I've been making this trip twice a year for several years), the domestic flight is frequently delayed, usually because of weather.
I book international travel with more connection time in ATL or CVG for the same reason
Tennisbum. I travel to Europe a couple of times a year to do trade shows and I time it to fly in with just enough time to set up the booth so if I miss a flight....I'm in big trouble. I started padding the connection time after a very close call when my DFW/CVG flight was delayed due to weather and I made the CVG/FRA flight only because my arrival and departure gates were side by side.
I don't know the answer to your question about the upgrade, although I lean towards a pessimistic view of how it would be handled, so I would think if you miss your original connection you would be SOL.