steve170461

Thanks for all of the answers. Certainly for one of us this was all about the tier points. It was indeed ex ARN-HEL-nightstop-HEL-JFK-CLT-IAD-3 days-DCA-PHL-LHR-HEL-ARN then position back on BA.

Even on the way out we had a cancelled JFK-CLT, which AA rebooked us at 1730 whilst we were at JFK on a LGA-DCA departing 1900, which we subsequently missed but they then put us on the 2000 to DCA.

Should we be able to get any of the missed sectors credited?

Plenty of lessons learned for us all on this one I think.

corporate-wage-slave

There is a guide to Original Routing Credit (ORC) in the Dashboard, but given this is AA on their network, I wouldn't get your hopes up too high.

KARFA

anniegray

Dave Noble

The connection in London was a valid one and looks like they were rebooked onto a flight about an hour later - misconnected and got on next flight - seems like booking the 10:20 was fine

What the problem was , was booking a separate ticket out of ARN with no buffer time

There is no point , imo, just adding extra time sitting at an airport intentionally

Given that there is no BA involvement in the flights, I would suspect BA will not just give credit for the unflown sectors

KARFA

ORC has been paid for non BA flights on BA tickets and even non BA flights on AA tickets.

No ORC is due for LHR-HEL-ARN as that part of the route was never flown or rebooked. However I would expect ORC to be forthcoming for the OP's outbound IRROPS on AA flights between JFK/LGA/CLT/DCA whether on a BA or AA ticket.

steve170461

It was a scheduled 1hr 20 connection in the same terminal so should and would have been comfortable if it hadn't been for the stand issue.

[QUOTE The connection in London was a valid one and looks like they were rebooked onto a flight about an hour later - misconnected and got on next flight - seems like booking the 10:20 was fine ][/QUOTE]

Dave, no the earliest rebooking they could give us arrived at ARN at 2025.

[QUOTE What the problem was , was booking a separate ticket out of ARN with no buffer time ][/QUOTE]

As it was an ex ARN fare we didn't really have a choice. We did allow a 2 hour buffer at ARN.

Globaliser

In case it helps with planning on a future occasion: On a separate ticket, after three flights and two short (even if legal) connections, I don't think two hours was nearly enough. After a day of flying like that, when there was so little margin for error in any event, you probably needed to stay overnight in Stockholm to be safe.

Personally, I think that the booked connection at HEL was also distinctly optimistic. The fact that a connection is legal doesn't mean that it's comfortable. It's only comfortable if nothing goes wrong. And when you're travelling, about the only guarantee you have of anything is that sometimes it will go wrong, perhaps horribly.

If you cut your margins fine, then a small hiccup is much more likely to wreck all the subsequent plans. Your arrival delay at LHR was only 69 minutes, which is small beer in the scale of possible delays. With the plans that you'd made, as soon as you had a small delay like that, the rest was inevitably going to fall over.

gq_dq

I wouldn't personally go quite that far but I have read that someone would not even consider booking onward travel the same day if on separate tickets. This person says to always give yourself a day or two between such itineraries. Now that of course is a little over-the-top conservative for some. My personal rule of thumb is to generally allow 4-6 hours depending on where I'm doing it, unless I don't have to get somewhere, don't really care and have time to spare, especially if it's a cheap onward ticket or if I can just hop on a bus or something like that for the last leg, if all else fails.

Bus to ARN you had not the option of... and seriously... these domino routings on separate tickets with such tight squeezes - not just one but so many - the sheer madness of running back and forth to ARN on the same day... and you thought everything was going to be hunky dory? You may have been lucky in the past but looks like you got bit today.

UncleDude

Another prime example of folks booking too tight connection for an Important event.

Anything essential such as connecting to a Cathay First Class award ticket, I arrive the day before

Aircraft have been late and unreliable for years, I saw on TV a couple of nights ago The First Scheduled 747 Flight 50 years ago went Tech.

Plan...Plan...Plan...

Dave Noble

This was not an issue with a too tight connection - connection missed and passenger got on the next flight - how would have booking the later flight up front have been any better?

The issue with the booking was insufficient time allowed for ending of 1 trip and the starting of the next trip in ARN - nothing to do with a connection

Sometimes flights are delayed and the airline will rebook - for a trip ex europe ( or return on an EU carrier ) , if it occurs, will almost certainly be rebooked on the next flight out ( unless it is a major issue affecting many flights - but even then could still be impacted ) and may get EUR600 . What is the benefit of , for example, booking a flight with a 4 hour connection when there is one at 90 minutes - miss the 90 minutes and get on the 4 hour flight. All that is being ensured is removing the chance of minimising travel time

If you like sitting around in waiting rooms for hours before a flight or extending travel time and cost with an overnight stop, then cool , go for it - but I plan to try an minimise the journey time where possible. Overnight stops are something I try to limit to when STPC applies and are necessary - or have been travelling a long while and will want a break

When having separate bookings, then I am very cautious unless the penalty for missing the flight is minimal

steve170461

Thanks for all of the comments and advice-much of which is now taken on board. Just to clarify, that all of the connections would have been made but for the 80 minute wait to get off the aircraft at LHR-40 mins for a stand and then another 40 when the air bridge went u/s.

Even if we had booked the last BA out of ARN on the seperate ticket with a 4 hour buffer rather than the 2 hour we went for, we still wouldn't have made that flight as the only re booking offered to us to ARN arrived at 2020-twenty minutes after the last BA departed.

Well it wasn't really, just 4 ATCers having a few beers in various European and US cities.

danielonn

File claim using Air Help for EU delays cancellatuons etc.

orbitmic

A 1h20 minute connection within the same terminal is certainly "doable" but definitely not "comfortable". In effect, a 30 minutes delay and unfavourable stand or slow disembarkation is enough to make you miss it. In effect, we are probably talking of at least a 5-10% risk here, which is by no means negligible.

Then we are back to square one: when it comes to booking separate tickets, just consider that risk level and how much you care about what you lose if your strategy fails as it has here. In this case, I understand taking the risk as it did not mean losing your more expensive long haul but only some short haul flights that you could comparatively afford to lose.

Suggestions to seek compensation etc are pointless here, there will be none, and ORC will most likely be refused to.