ntorresk

Hello everyone,

I'm new here (this is my first post). I hope you can help me.

We are looking for a flight from San Diego, CA in January. We have various options (with various airlines) but all of them have something undesirable, so it's become a matter of picking the less risky option.

One of the options we are considering is a flight that goes from San Diego to LAX to Miami to San Juan. My concern is with the LAX layover, which is 1 hr 18 min. I have read that the flight from SAN to LAX should arrive at the American Eagle remote terminal, which requires a bus to the main terminal. So I am worried about the bus schedule. How often do the buses come? Will I have a long wait for a bus? Will 1 hr 18 min be enough to make my connection?

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide.

IADCAflyer

I'm not all that worried about 1:18. SAN-LAX is a pretty reliable route, and while the buses from the Eagle's Nest to T-4 often are slow, this connection time doesn't bother me.

IIRC, AA used to fly SAN-MIA non-stop (it was a redeye). Is this not an option? I can think of a lot of 1 stoppers that are easier than a double connect via MIA and LAX.

marquito

jcatman

Welcome to Flyertalk, ntorresk. You should have no issues making that connection using the bus from the Eagle's Nest to Terminal 4. Safe flight, and remember to spend lots of money in SJU.

C17PSGR

+1

I fly through the remote terminal with connections regularly. You should have plenty of time based on your connection time as buses run frequently. Make sure you know which terminal your flight to Miami is leaving from. American flights leave from both Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 but there are separate buses for each terminal. You won't know which terminal for sure until you land in LAX so just check the monitors before you get on the bus. Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 are connected behind security so if you make a mistake you'll be okay.

bottom line is that this should be very easy and welcome to flyertalk!

bzcat

LAX-MIA can also depart from TBIT, which also uses the T4 bus to/from Eagle's nest.

Cledaybuck

Yeah, I was going to say, surely there are better routings than this, especially if you are airline agnostic (which the OP seems to be).

Gig103

OP would have to come back to confirm, but could be on a transcon configured aircraft for LAX-MIA in business/first. Or it could be the only saaver award route that came up. I also know someone who would book a second connection to save as little as $20!

ntorresk

Thank you to everyone who has answered so far.

Let me provide some additional information, which should answer the questions posed in your replies. We are taking a cruise which ends in San Diego. Therefore the flight must leave after 11 a.m. Plus, we have to be back at work the next day so the flight must reach SJU before 5:30 a.m. Which, from what I've been able to find, leaves only the following options:
1- American Airlines SAN - LAX - MIA - SJU (This is the flight I'm asking about here.)
2- American Airlines SAN - DFW - SJU (My brother doesn't like this one because it arrives at 5:22 a.m. so if anything is delayed there will be a problem)
3- Jetblue SAN - JFK - SJU (JFK in January sounds risky in terms of weather.)
4- Southwest SAN - AUS - MCO and Jetblue MCO - SJU (Requires airline change and, therefore, baggage pickup and rechecking plus going through security again. The time between flights is only 2 hours, which is not enough to make me very comfortable with that. We were originally planning to do this one because Southwest used to have a direct flight between SAN and MCO which left a very comfortable 5+ hr connection in MCO.)

As an additional question, how common are delays at LAX? The connection time in MIA is 1 hr 33 min and I've been to that airport a couple of times. However, the connection time obviously cannot handle a significant delay.

Cledaybuck

That's insane, but to each his own.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Given it's January stay away from any cold weather airports. I'd stay with your original itinerary. Generally delays out of LAX are fairly minimal and MIA in January should be also good-thunderstorms are very rare. The only real risk would be maintenance issues. If your on the 77W flight LAX/MIA a/c coming in from long haul sometimes have some minor maintenance issues that must be dealt with but with 1.5 hours at MIA you should be ok. Worst comes to worst AA will protect you and put you onto a MIA/SJU next day, likely the first flight out.

Cledaybuck

Wow, that's more ambitious than I would ever try to be. What day are we talking?

flyerCO

I know youre shooting for after 11am, but there's a 1033am departure via Dallas getting in same day around 11pm. Otherwise your only option really is the AA option you list, or JetBlue via BOS or JFK. (I'd take JFK over BOS) Looking at the scheduled you'd be on the daily 777 LAX-MIA. This as pointed out before can mean a risk.

Regardless of time of year, your time constraints mean a very real setup for failure.

enpremiere

JDiver

Welcome to FlyerTalk. Check your connection - see which terminal it’s departing, as there are shuttle busses to Terminals 4 and 5. (Eagle baggage checking and recovery are in T5, but if you’re departing T4 or TBIT you’ll want the bustbto T-4). GUIDE: LAX / Los Angeles International Airport - MCT, Connection, etc.