Newly Wed

ianj844

No. If I recall correctly the change must be 61 minutes or greater or break MCT in order to be eligible for you to change flights without paying a fee.

IADCAflyer

IIRC, it had to be at least an hour (maybe 2). Or unless the change results in an illegal connection.

DCP2016

You can definitely try, worst you can get is "no". I've successfully been able to change my flights to better times when I've had 10-30 minute schedule changes.

JDiver

In a word, “no”.

Breaking MCT or 90 minutes would.

Of course if you call, at least it’s not you telling yourself no, and you could get lucky. Probably not, given the fare differences.

RG1X

I had a landing time changed by six minutes recently and was able to change it no problems... but I suspect that six minutes was enough to break MCT.

Didn't get any significant discussion on it, the CS rep just got right to helping me find alternatives.

jliehr

AndyAA

JDiver

The OP booked the original flight at a lower booking rate hoping to change to the preferred flight, which was not booked because the booking gate code and price were higher. With a 20 minute change and a higher price, I’m guessing they’d prefer charging the fare difference - and possibly some would try to impose a change fee.

enpremiere

AndyAA

redtop43

You have nothing to lose by trying. You didn't say if your flight change made it earlier or later. Make up a story. If the flight is now 20 minutes later, tell them that you absolutely had to be there by x time and that now you'll be 10 minutes late, so can you take the earlier flight. If it's earlier, tell them that you had a meeting or something that would have let you make the later flight but now you're going to have to cancel it entirely, so you might as well take the earlier. It doesn't matter if they think you're lying.

I recently had a time change that was totally inconsequential, but between the time I booked and now they added a better connection. Basically on two separate trips I was flying PHL-LAX-LAS and I was arriving LAX around 7 and leaving at 9:30, but they added an 8:10 flight. They let me change it. The agent told me it was because I was on an I fare (as you are) but it may have just been a gentle pitch to remind me to spend more money rather than less.

One thing I am quite sure of is that they're not going to go back to the day you booked, see the fare difference, and say "You already booked the later flight to save money, so we're not going to let you get away with this."

Give it a try. What's the worst that can happen? They say no.

Newly Wed

Thanks for all these insightful comments. I will give AA a call and see what they say. Its a trip from LAX to Hawaii so not a big deal either way but as we are arriving from London the night before and have 8 hours of time difference to cope with taking the earliest flight plays to the fact that we will no doubt be raring to go at 4am.

I actually originally booked an economy O fare class but decided I couldn't face 6 hours in the back and upgraded to the I class fare more recently. I doesn't look like there is much of a fare difference between the earlier and later flight in F and I class is available so maybe we will be ok.

I will report back....

Newly Wed

Data point: my call with AA (the UK contact centre) was answered within 2 minutes, the CS rep confirmed that a change was possible and processed it straightaway. The entire process from start to finish took less than 5 minutes and the CS rep even took care to transfer across our seat reservations so that we have the same seats as originally booked (party of 4 with young kids).

The new flight is showing on the AA website already. It was a one way flight and curiously the original flight is now showing as a return sector. I will keep an eye on that and call AA again later if it doesn't resolve itself.

Totally painless and excellent customer service.