AA has completely changed my flight routing - advice on how to approach?
 

Hi all. First time venturing into AA forum based on necessity - apologies in advance.

So I have a ticket from LGA-VIE return over thanksgiving that I bought on the AA mistake fare sale to Europe back in May. I was just checking flight times, etc. to plan my time in NYC and my positioning flight when I looked at the reservation online and AA has completely changed the return portion of the itinerary. Instead of being VIE-LGA it is now showing as ZHR-JFK?!?!

Any ideas on what's going on and how to rectify? I am unsure if I call due to the circumstances under which I bought the ticket....

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/membe...-aa-flight.jpg

Looks like they tried to do you a favor after a flight change. You can just call and ask them to reroute you to LGA instead. (Note: It's wise to have already looked up your referred flights yourself.

Edit: My mistake, I didn't notice you were supposed to be departing from VIE. As the poster below suggested, check your itinerary on AA.com first. If it doesn't show any flight, call. (Note, you'll have to call whoever you booked the flights with.)

What does your itinerary look like when you pull it up on AA.com? Does it include another flight getting you to ZRH from VIE on Air Berlin/Niki or something?

That's the flight that's supposed to be there. When I try to pull it up on AA.com I get a "Your reservation details cannot be retrieved at this time. This may be caused by changes made to the reservation outside of AA.com. Please contact AA Reservations." message. Ugh I guess I have to call.

Thanks

I'd look up your preferred flights. You will have to call. You have much more leeway in situations like this if you are well-prepared. Please let us know how it goes!

This is just an auto-rebook. If you have something different you want, call and ask for it. But, do the legwork first so that you can feed the agent the segments.

This is also a good time to fix your outbound. Your connection at PHL is ridiculously tight. LGA-PHL, although 15-20 mins in the air, will be the first flight delayed or cancelled in almost any WX / ATC situation and those are most evenings between BOS and WAS.

^ Thanks guys. I'll look up an alternative itin and hopefully get it all sorted.

1:20 is ridiculously tight to connect from domestic to TATL at PHL? Not saying you are wrong - I've only done it once. But I'm a little surprised.

I don't believe the issue here is that it's a Domestic to International connection, but rather that it's coming from delay prone LGA.

Pretty much you get one shot at changing this, so make sure you know what you want.

Same type of experience, for us except we were on separate records. The moved me from Monday to Tuesday departure and Mrs. Deac83 to the THURSDAY BEFORE. Bizarre.

We were on a FF F 777 ticket that we could only book on Monday, made them put us on Sunday which is actually what we had wanted to book but was not available.

I purchased an LGA-PHL-ZRH-VIE-ZRH-PHL-LGA trip during the same sale that was later changed to JFK-ZRH-VIE-ZRH-JFK. It looks like they tried to similarly "optimize" your return, but botched a codeshare leg. I expect you'll want AA8094 (operated by NIKI) as the missing VIE-ZRH connection.

Unfortunately, after several minor schedule and/or flight number changes I wasn't paying much attention by the time they made the origin and routing change and didn't notice until I went to plan my positioning flights. It cost me some miles, but is less hassle and gives me more time in the city, so I'm not planning to change it.

Yep! My original confirmation email has me on 8094.

So I'm going to call tomorrow once I have all my ducks in a row and I obviously have grounds to get them to change the return flights since they dropped a flight, but any ideas on how I can get a more direct route (not via PHL) on the outbound without incurring any change fees or whatever?

If they didn't auto-mess-with your outbound routing, I don't think you have any grounds to get a free change on that portion of a revenue ticket.

That's what I figured, just didn't know if anybody had any other experience.

In other AA.com funnies, I am looking at alternate routes and it is offering first class fares for half of what is is asking for business class between NYC and VIE. :confused: