BThumme

Call again. You shouldn't have to say anything, but if they keep saying no, all you need to say is per the Weather Waiver Rules, Origin and Destination must remain the same. If that doesn't work, call again.

wrp96

Definitely hang up and call again. DFW is definitely covered by the weather waiver.

tsg20

I'm happy to give it a go, but I can see it from their point of view - does the waiver actually oblige them to give me the direct flight, given that AUS isn't in the waiver, so this doesn't get us out of the waiver area?

BThumme

AUS is irrelevant. The weather waiver clearly states if you are traveling to or through or from certain cities, which you are. Don't overthink or worry about this. Call again. If you get told no, hang up and call again. I promise you, you will get one agent who will take care of it in a matter of seconds.

And, FWIW, this isn't even remotely close to bending any sort of rules.

Heck, if I were you, I would be calling to go DFW-LAX(on a widebody plane)-LHR, and enjoy some time in the INTL terminal lounges @LAX. But I'm weird like that and don't place extra value on nonstops like most normal people.

tsg20

OK, calling back they would have been happy to have changed to a direct flight, waiving the change fee, but they wanted to charge the difference in miles between what we paid (55k) and what is available now (110k), which of course I didn't want to do. Does that sound right?! I guess it isn't strictly speaking a change fee, but...

Croptop

I'm scheduled to fly MCO->CLT->YYZ on 07 Jan with (unfortunately) a short, 50 min window to catch my flight to YYZ (it was longer when I booked it but a schedule change tightened the window on me and since it's a Q fare, I don't think I could make a change without incurring a large fee).

Now with the weather event due to hit the area, I'm wondering if I should be attempting to make some changes to my flights. I'm not sure that attempting to reroute to PHL would be much better but I'm very much a newb when it comes to these sort of things and would very much appreciate any and all advice that could be offered.

I had hoped that perhaps I could book a non-stop MCO->YYZ but that doesn't seem to be an option (at least based on searching for flights on aa.com)

SkiUtah

with weather they are definitely NOT going to put you a MCO-YYZ nonstop flight since AA doesn't operate any.

I do see connections thru LGA, PHL, MIA. LGA or PHL are far away and totally fine on Saturday. Colder then CLT but no snow. You should be able to change to New York or Philly for free.

BThumme

You're in a pretty interesting/unique scenario. With my most recent IRROPS yesterday, my flight actually got reticketed (4 times actually). For these weather waivers, that might lead to a rebooking which would probably have to be done at the higher value.

How bad do you want the nonstop? You can always keep trying to see if you find a helpful agent who might not charge the higher rate, but that might be getting lucky at that point.

What I would do is that if there's any signs of delays for your AUS flight tomorrow, recalling if a delay of any sorts posts.

BThumme

Do you like what you have? You can reroute for free as mentioned above, even if it might seem unconventional. Do you want to get in earlier? Later? Connect through somewhere you have more/less time? Basically go to aa.com or google.com/flights, see what you can find, and call in and say what you want and see if they will do it.

If I were you, I would go through PHL on one of the three afternoon departures that are on the AA330 aircraft as I like bigger planes, such as this:

https://goo.gl/flights/8hXc

Croptop

Thanks for the advice everyone. Called AA and got rerouted to PHL instead of CLT and ended up with a better layover time. As an added bonus I'll even get home 2 hours earlier -- assuming no delays.

ma91pmh

Does the weather waiver allow you to cancel ticket without penalty?

I am scheduled to leave today but may not work, meaning it won't work any time

wrp96

You can try (and I would), but they've put stricter rules on weather waivers recently, and typically they only allow you to refund if your flight is actually cancelled.

ma91pmh

Thanks! Pretty lame but hey that's the gold standard these days

maracle

I thought mine was 33 minutes, but I called today and checked before calling...it's 37 minutes. It was probably 37 all along since they were selling the flight when I thought it was 33 minutes.

Anyway, the agent said he couldn't change it unless the connect time was showing as invalid in the system, and there's no business saver award space to change it to anything that day.

On the plus side, in Business we'll get off several minutes sooner than usual. I'll keep an eye out for new award seats opening up. Our connecting flight to Japan is actually the next afternoon, so we should make that one way or another (taxi if necessary).

wrp96

They've added an alert for Fort Lauderdale