Suggestions for possible re-routing needed
 

I was just checking on my J AE reward trip coming up (2 tickets) and yikes--spotted this. Our return was suppose to be Tues Feb 25 CPT-IST (TK41) IST-ZRH (TK1907) ZRH-YYZ arr ZRH 10:20 (AC 879) arr YYZ 16:15 Feb 26

It now reads that the ZRH-YYZ (AC879) is on Feb 27th - which means an overnight in ZRH. It looks as if AC879 has been cancelled on Feb 26th. I looked to see if the IST-YYZ direct flight is available and it too does not seem to be operating on Feb 26.

Since we coming from almost a month in South Africa we do not want the overnight in ZRH as we will just have to stay at the airport hotel - we won't have any coats, boots, gloves with us so can't go downtown. The only option I see is going ZRH-FRA on LH 9025 at 14:35 and then AC877 at 17:00 arr YYZ 19:40

So I am looking for what I might suggest as options when I phone in to AE--or do I have any?? Thanks for any help you can give!:)

Does TK fly IST-YYZ on the day you want?
Or SA to North America or Europe.

I would find out from AP when they made the change and make it clear you can't do it. You could look at flights through FRA LH or TK to AC, or MUC LH or TK to AC or LH to LH, or even IST to YZ via EWR on UA. Connecting times are good, and the flights I looked had lots of space in Biz First. They are using the ex CO 763's here with full lie flat, almost pods but not quite.

Since the schedule change is from AC, AE/AC should be willing to open up seats for you from any of their other European gateways on your original travel date.

Intra Europe J award space is usually very easy to find, so find a flight from IST to XXX with award space and then ask AE/AC to open up seats from XXX to YYZ for you.

IST-IAD-YYZ on Feb.26 - 2 tickets available in J and Y IAD-YYZ

Make sure they refund the scamcharges they collected from you for ZRH-YYZ!!! That should be at least $800 coming your way!

You can do JFK as well, but it would require LGA-YYZ.

Thanks for your help! I changed the flights to IST-MUC-YYZ. I was told that they could open up any AC flight as the problem was due to an AC schedule change-- but they could not force a reward ticket on another airline. There were a few options available but the two most acceptable to me were
1. IST-MUC in Y not J and then MUC-YYZ AC J getting into YYZat 2:55pm on Feb 26 OR
2. IST-FRA-YYZ all in J but not getting into YYZ until 7:40pm on Feb 26 with a 6 hr layover in IST and 3 hr layover in FRA

Other possibilities included going into CDG or IAD but with more connections or getting in later to YYZ. As we have an 1 1/2 hr drive after arriving in YYZ I opted for the IST-MUC in Y and MUC-YYZ J. We have travelled the IST-MUC route before so know that the Y and J seats are the same but the J seat leaves the middle seat empty. We can manage the 2 1/2 hr flight in Y so that we get home sooner.

Should I see about a reduction in fees/charges?? Is there a difference between ZRH-YYZ and MUC-YYZ in this regard??

Thanks for the suggestions!!:)

The scamcharge for MUC-YYZ and ZRH-YYZ on AC is the same so you won't get any refund. Keep checking for J seats for IST-MUC that could become available between now and your travel date. You might have to use UA's website to see this. If they do become available then just call it in and you'll be upgraded for free.

For the $800 you would have saved by taking TK (without the 2.5 flight in Y), you could have had a real nice hotel on arrival in YYZ ;)

Would have loved to take the TK flight IST-YYZ but TK doesn't fly this route on Tues. Feb 26 so was out of luck. We took this flight home in Sept and it was great! We had a week in Stresa, Italy then 2 weeks in Turkey. All flights on that holiday were J on an AE reward. Quite pleasant - other than TK often ran late with no explanation given at all for the 1 hr delay in boarding.

But there was IST-IAD-YYZ @:-)
and TK would have provided you with a hotel (or a free tour) for that layover too.

AC Express flies 3x daily from JFK-YYZ on Q400s.

wasnt available on the day the OP asked about. Only way was with an extra connection JFK-IAD-YYZ.

OP- Just checked my IST-MUC seats which had to be switched (Jan 10 pm) to economy. I was surprised to see that 2 J seats had popped up! Called AE and we are now J for all segments CPT-JNB-IST-MUC-YYZ. :) So all is well! Thanks everyone for suggestions!