sunshineaz

We chose a flight in early March for our December vacation. We purchased business class seats flying PHX-LAX-CUN flying out on a monday evening to arrive tuesday morning with transports planned and timed for that arrival.

We received notification that AA has changed these flights to fly out in the middle of the night and arriving at lunch, PHX-MIA-CUN, with only a 47 min layover in MIA. Unfortunately all the other overnight flights with our business level seats are full and so we have to take that flight or wait for a flight out of PHX at noon on tuesday arriving late evening with a long drive from there to our hotel where we would arrive very late on our first day.

How often do you get these changes on AA? We had a change last year in flights and connecting cities going international too. We never have a problem domestically, but this is hard to take that we now pretty much loose our first day after making sure to book the right flight but too far ahead evidently.

enviroian

Just curious as to why you wouldn't fly to Cancun nonstop from Phoenix?

It's also domestic F technically, cabin wise.

Dave Noble

If the original flight has been cancelled, if you telephone AA, you may be able to get rebooked onto another flight despite availability ; e.g. the non stop flights on monday or tuesday departing at 08:55 (arriving 15:15) or 12:50 (arriving 19:00)

If no options appeal, the only other option is to cancel and book with another carrier

arollins

Your flight is 4 months from now, it will most likely have another schedule change. If the schedule change is substantial, 2hrs, you can request to be re-accommodated to another routing that is more suitable to you, or request a refund. I wouldn't have booked transport this early. As previous poster mentioned,any reason you didn't booked direct from PHX?

When you booked a trip this far out, schedule changes are very common, should not be a surprise. Use this to your advantage, look for a suitable replacement routing and call AA to change it. Keep in mind that you future changes can still occurr.

AAExecPlatFlier

Did u check for a flight(s) you want and call AA?

this happens on a daily basis.

SeattleDavid

All the advice here is sound - it seems that there are no LAX-CUN nonstop flights any more and so you will have to take a different route.

You didn't give your dates, but there is a redeye from PHX-CLT that has a morning connection into CUN, but there is also a morning nonstop from PHX-CUN.

The main thing is that you have to call and ask for the flights you want and stand your ground some - they may say your fare class isn;'t available on the flights you want, but they can override that when the route you booked has been cancelled

You say the flights are full, but that looks unlikely - your fare class may be 0'd out, but you need to ask them nicely to override that.

formeraa

As I re-read the OP's post, it seems that the OP booked a DECEMBER flight back in early March. Anytime you book that far in advance, there will be schedule changes.

Your option to get to CUN in the am appears to be PHX-CLT-CUN, departing PHX just after midnight and arriving CUN just before 11am.

sunshineaz

They told our TA that the PHX-CLT-CUN is unavailable with business class seats but we could go in coach. They want us to do the direct flight that is later that day but the direct flight plane is an older, not as comfortable plane.

We wanted to arrive as early as possible on the first day as it is a bit of a drive to where we are staying. The direct flight arrives near dinner time which means our arrival is well after dinnertime to our hotel. We had originally scheduled leaving at 9 p.m. from PHX and arriving at 6:30 a.m. to at least be able to enjoy the first day of vacation a little. It is just aggravating since they did similar last year for our vacation. It left the same time but went to a different connecting city and extended travel by 2 hours. This change makes our arrival either 5 hours later or 13 hours later than originally scheduled.

We haven't decided what we are going to do yet. We were just wondering if this was as common as we have seemed to experience. We schedule that far out as it is less expensive to get a hotel-air package than buying separately and the hotel has been fully booked for our upgraded class of room for months now. Maybe next time, we will just book the room and wait until closer to travel time to book the air.

wrp96

Yes it is typical for US carriers to change schedules, sometimes multiple times, especially when you book several months in advance.

diver858

Or PHX-MIA-CUN - depart PHX 1:45 am, arrive CUN 10:30 am - both LAA 737.

Often1

1. Deal with the TA.

2. Do the research and determines what works best. If it is on another carrier, see if it is cheaper than AA. If it is, purchase the new tickets and obtain a refund for the AA tickets (you are entitled to a full refund).

3. No matter what you do, it won't be as convenient as what you had. But, AA has dropped the route, so this is not simply about a schedule change.

formeraa

OP, check aa.com and see if there are business seats available for sale on your travel date. If so, tell your TA to call AA and remind them that they did a schedule change and are changing your flights more than 2 hours. Therefore, you want a free change to the connection through CLT.

If business class is sold out through CLT, then you may have to either go through MIA with the short connection or take the nonstop from PHX. By the way, the 757 flown from PHX may or may not have the older seats -- it depends on which version they are using. IMHO, the older seats are more comfortable than the new ones on the 757.

Dallas49er

[QUOTE=Often1;28644716]1. Deal with the TA. ...


OP-MAKE THE TA DO THE WORK! Can't get much simpler than that, if one is going to use a TA.

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