pinniped

The only thing I'll add here is that I consider myself a somewhat experienced traveler...quite a few years of AA Plat and UA 1P/1K and plenty of international travel...and I've made the LGA/JFK mistake without knowing it on AA.com before.

As far as I know, they're the only airline that's ever even offered me a connection on one PNR that required use of a coterminal, no transportation provided between the two airports, and no special warning about it.

By the time I noticed my LGA/JFK mistake it was months after I'd booked the trip and only days until the flight. I just lived with it and although I was a bit annoyed about it, I made the connection.

Still, I can see that this is probably a semi-regular occurrence amongst non-frequent-fliers. Arrive at LGA, look up at the board thinking "OK, where's my next flight?" Eventually figure out it's across town...

I've been flying more UA than AA these days. United.com will frequently show flight combinations into and out of different coterminals (e.g., it'll show lots of combinations for MCI-WAS) but I don't think it's ever shown two of them as part of one connection.

I still would have handled my own grandmother differently... I might have attempted to accompany her on some of the domestic flights, especially if I held a top-tier status and knew I could get down to MIA on a 25k award (or cheap paid ticket).

brp

I'm going to have to disagree with this part. I just recreated a similar itinerary on AA.com, and this particular choice had a note:

Alert: Different connection airports.

This is on a different-colored background and quite noticeable. In fact, even flights with possible terminal changes indicate that.

Cheers.

mvoight

A look of the itinerary after booking would also clearly show JFK and LGA as the airports involved. Of course that was another frustration point for the OP, but didn't affect the actual trip taken by the abuela. I still applaud AA for giving her a hotel room and meal vouchers for a weather problem.

pinniped

Well, I guess that's better than nothing. Is there a link there that explains to people not familiar with New York how far apart they are or the optimal ways between the two airports?

Also, if you proceed with a booking is there a pop-up window actually requiring the user to accept the airport change? (There might be now...I did this many years ago and I don't think there was then.)

In some ways, I'm glad AA does offer the option. On many itineraries, it is actually optimal - better than adding an extra flight connection. I don't blame AA for my itinerary years ago: I simply failed to look at every segment very, very closely like I do now.

brp

I don't think that they do either of these. But I consider a visible warning, without having to click anything to get it, to be sufficient. At some point the person booking the flight has to take responsibility for what they're doing.

(Kind of like the time I showed up at Avis in SAN to get my car, and they didn't have one. But I know I made the reservation. After some searching they found that I had reserved a car...in AUS. Both were in my frequent bookings and I'd done the wrong one. It all worked out in the end )

Cheers.

pinniped

LOL...I've walked into the wrong Marriott a couple times over the years...always when I had a reservation at a different Marriott across town somewhere. Agreed: it's definitely on the traveler to review his/her own reservations closely.

dstan

I think we can all agree that we're glad the OP's grandmother is ok and that a number of things can be done differently next time by multiple parties. FlyerTalk is largely about helping travelers learn how to help themselves, and some excellent suggestions along these lines have been made.

Now that it seems everyone has had a chance to express their opinions clearly (and I thank you for largely doing so in a thoughtful, respectful manner), we'll close this thread and return to more AA-specific discussions.

/Moderator