skippythelizard

Codeshare flight schedule changes and cancellations for an upcoming family trip are driving me crazy. I'm normally pretty good at handling these scenarios, but I could use some expert advice.

Here's the situation.

"I" fare booked in sale last fall. Family of 4. Original itinerary JAX-MIA-LHR on 6/6 and return 6/20.

JAX-MIA and MIA-JAX flights have changed or cancelled at least 6 times. BA never notifies me, I only find out via MyFlights app.

After one of those changes, I revised the dates to 6/6 - 6/15.

A few weeks ago, AA cancelled all midday JAX-MIA flights on Mondays. This left me with an 8+ hour layover at MIA.

So I used the 300 mile rule and asked to be booked out of CHS. I was able to keep the MIA-LHR-MIA flights (trying to give family a great experience, I have mini cabin AA 77W seats in one direction, row 62 on 747 the other).

CHS change finally saw a ticket reissued yesterday.

Today, MyFlights app notified me of another change. BA2388 on 6/6 CHS-MIA cancelled.

The only problem is that it is not. The time changed by a few minutes.

So I spent 30 minutes on the phone with the BA gold line.

They see the flight is not actually cancelled. But there is no availability in business/first (there was when they first put me on the flight). All this is odd, because the AA PNR has me in first on the small plane, and I can even change seats, even though the BA PNR says it is cancelled.

Agent suggests CHS-DFW-LHR as alternative, or downgrade CHS-MIA. I'd be ok with downgrading CHS-MIA if I have to, but he can't do it, it needs to go to the fare department for repricing. So he took my number and said the fare department would call me.

I find this all ridiculous. I have spent many hours dealing with rebooking related to all the schedule changes and cancellations, and now we're about 10 days away.

Any suggestions? Try another agent?

I am very skeptical that the fare department will call me.

Thanks for any suggestions.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, there is no airline I can think of that is so addicted to flight changes as AA, it drives many of us mad. I must admit my tactic is to just wait until about 8 weeks before travel. Apart from Thanksgiving you're unlikely to get a sold out flight that far out, and the schedule is unlikely to chance that close in. Having said that, this is a tactic that works for me, many other travellers would feel quite uncomfortable about it. In your case however this seems a very late change indeed.

Now if this change is very new, it still maybe best to wait a few days for the buckets to be set up and forwarded on to BA. The call back from fares is quite normal, it often takes about 3 or 4 days, and it is standard procedure given where you are now. It's not BA's fault, but when you change routings or class this is necessary since taxes and airport fees may well alter as a result of your change, and must be correctly inputted to validate the ticket.

There is an escalation process, if seats get difficult to find, namely asking the agent to refer the matter to the oneworld liaison desk. It exists to sort out these kinds of problem. Hopefully in a few days you will finally fixed and this won't be needed.

skippythelizard

Thanks for the reply. I usually wait out the changes as well. But this time one of the changes triggered a misconnect, and a BA TATL dropped from my reservation. By the time I got the notification, someone else moved into row 62.

Not that specific seating is that big of a deal...but traveling with family is different from my usual solo trips. So I started watching more closely for changes.

Good to know from your experience that the fares department will actually call, so I'll wait for them...just afraid that my MIA-LHR will disappear and I lose the mini-cabin seats. Especially as BA is probably busy with reroutings because of the French strike disruption, and the bank holiday weekend.

I mentioned trying a OW liaison to the agent today, but they said it looked like more of a BA fare bucket issue. So I guess talking to the fare department is the next step, and suggest liaison if they get stuck.

My backup plan is CHS-DFW-LHR...out of the way, but good timing for sleep enroute and connection to EDI on a separate ticket. Also considering asking for reroute to direct ATL-LHR, but flight is J9 C4 D2 R1...I assume they would rebook me into lowest available bucket, in this case C , as there are 4 of us.

skippythelizard

Fares (nor anyone else from BA) have gotten back to me, so as next Monday is getting close, I rang the BA gold line again.

The first flight in my itinerary on 6/6 is CHS-MIS BA2388 (AA4422).

Last Thursday, my itinerary on BA.com started reporting that this flight was cancelled.

However, it hasn't been. What happened was the time changed from 17:34-19:14 to 17:32-19:17.

That would present a MCT problem if I was booked on the BA208 at 20:45, but I'm connecting to the BA1529 codeshare at 21:15.

They can't put me back on the flight because all First/Biz fare buckets are 0 on the BA flight number. The AA flight number has F2 A1 P2.

But the reason there are no seats is because the AA PNR for this trip still has me confirmed in 4 seats. And I can freely move the seats around as the other 4 seats in the cabin are unallocated.

When I called today, the agent tried taking it to the OneWorld help desk, but after 15 minutes came back and said there was no easy fix. The help desk needs a day or two, and he'll call me back when they get back to him.

Fair enough, but there has been a history of other cancellations in this booking, and BA has never notified me. MyFlights (R.I.P.) has let me know. So I'm skeptical that I'll hear back. I'm skeptical the agent will hear back from the OW team. Hopefully my expectations are wrong, and I will get a call back.

I'd just hate to show up Monday in CHS at an AA desk, with family in tow, and expect them to sort it. Not that they couldn't, but it is a BA ticket, and there will be limited options from CHS.

skippythelizard

Well, this agent did come through and get it fixed, and ticket reissued.

Still it was bizarre that BA was reporting the codeshare flight as cancelled in my reservation while AA still had me confirmed on an operating flight the whole time.

Maybe this will help somebody else if they run into a similar situation. I had to really push the fact that the AA PNR was still showing me confirmed on an operating flight.

Side note...it is funny to look at the booking in the BA app as for some reason it shows all the cancelled flights mixed in with the confirmed flights, so it lists 10 flights instead of 4.