passy777

My SOF-LHR sector which was the starting point of a trip to LAX was cancelled yesterday. I contacted BA in the afternoon and I was connected in 5 minutes. I asked for the SOF-LHR to be dropped which they did without any re-price.

Confirmation of the change was sent by email and I just cancelled the positioning flight for an E. Voucher.

Depending on what is best for you, but if you want to start your trip from LHR, it might pay to try again and hope for an agent who will sort it out.

Sartorial

Fantastic, thank you so much! I tried a similar routing with PMI and LIS, but didn't look at AGP, the others were much more expensive! Will try to make a holiday out of this haha

LondonGlobalist

Morning,


If the SOF-JFK is a single ‘flight’ they normally rebook you but, as it’s a complex routing, I suspected it’s seen as multiple linked flights on a single booking (eg. SOF-LHR and LHR-JFK) and the computer just hasn’t registered the knock-on effect.

It’s a call to BA, sadly (try mid morning).

You can look at other ‘local’ airports within a few hundred miles. They might let you start in London but you need them to protect the ticket (so you’re not a ‘no-show’) and try your luck, making the argument that you have managed to source alternative travel from SOF to London as their change was not feasible… They won’t want proof but you need to be ‘seen’ to have started in SOF…

More likely, the whole ticket will be amended to catch-up so worth looking at what flights you’d like to be moved to (use Google flights or Matrix). They shouldn’t charge for the change, provided it’s same class and the same or a reasonable route.

Travelstylers

That is great to know! I did wonder if this was possible. Thanks

thetravelguy

Just saw this and don't forget the lyric from the hidden city ticket song "I fly up front paying less than coach...It's completely legal".....As long as travelers can improve their standard of travel for less than coach, they will try. And now with EUR/USD nearly at par it's even cheaper for U.S. based travelers to try to Euro based origins you mentioned. Regardless of where you stand on the hidden city ticket issue, the hidden city ticket song music video , which as I just saw is part of Involuntary Reroute, IS pretty funny

thetravelguy

It may be surprising to some, but the hidden city music video is on the http://www.involuntaryreroute.com site

RichieMc

I have this itinerary booked a while ago (ignore price and flight numbers). Was going to happen sooner or later, but finally got notification that the first SOF-LHR leg is cancelled. Just trying to work out how best to proceed. It’s an AA ticket. I had them on the chat and they said I could either leave the day before or the day after. Or I could leave from another city like OTP. Seen upthread that someone was able to get the departure city changed to LHR without repricing. But I kind of wanted to rack up the TPs and I’ve got a friend on Sofia to catch up with anyway. And I already have positioning flights booked. So I’m leaning towards leaving the day before as this will give me an extra day in SF. It’s a BA cancellation so wondering if they will let me change the positioning flight (separate PNR obviously) to a day before as well. Keeping current positioning flight would end up making this a B2B on the 11th. Not sure I fancy the emotional stress of a B2B before this trip. The other thing is that I was not too happy about the silly long layover in JFK and the past midnight arrival into SFO. If I change to a day earlier, will AA let me modify the itinerary to get on an earlier JFK-SFO rather than keep the exact same flights?

So really I’m not asking too much. Just a.) start the whole thing a day earlier, b.) BA to let me move my positioning flight to a day earlier and c.) AA to let me switch to slightly more convenient time on JFK-SFO. I’d just like some guidance so I know how to play it when I call them tomorrow. Or is there any advantage to just waiting to see what other cancellations or schedule changes come up?

Edit: in MMB I can currently change the positioning flight to the 10th for £8. If I can get the rest to work, I’d happily donate £8 towards the new management team’s bonus pool to avoid 2hours on hold!

Markie

You can do Back-To-Back easily at SOF so you may wish to factor that in.
AA are a lot less flexible in my experience with dropping segments than BA are.
BA might help by changing the positioning flights but as you have an AA ticket it would very much depend on BA agent, so you may need to hang up and try again if you get a 'No' Otherwise I would pay the £8!

Smid

It's hitting around 6 months to get to Christmas, and I've binned the Hawaii flights because of hotel prices, so looking at San Diego. Got a non TPish (not via JFK, just direct) for about 1350 ex dub, and we're helped by a spare cancelled dublin flight floating around in the BA ether. BUD prices the same, CDG not at all. Any other starting points currently good for the west coast fares six months out?

nufnuf77

If anyone is interested the

BUD (40) HEL (80) LHR (210) JFK (40) MIA (210) GRU return for 1160tps and 2750gbp in First class (A) is still available (BA+AA+AY)

RichieMc

Update in case anyone is interested. May be useful to anyone else hit with the inevitable upcoming cancellations. Called AA and changed this to the day before. Actually suits me as I can use the extra day in SF. Also had no problem letting me shorten the silly long layover in JFK and the post midnight arrival in SF (tried when I booked but fare exploded). Separately, AA also cancelled my 8:20 SFO-JFK and put me on the 6:20am departure. Tried my luck to get on the JetBlue 7am which he did no problem. Was quite curious to try the Mint Suites. But just realised that I won't get any TPs on JetBlue even with an AA flight number. Not 100% sure that I'll need them, but I have to make up my mind pretty quick.

MaxFlyer

AA have also re-times my SFO-JFK to the 6:20am departure. That’s a 2 hour earlier than the original scheduled flight and really impacts sleep.

I’m also considering Jet Blue but will probably stick with AA.

dougzz

I was booked on AA274 and AA104, LAX-JFK-LHR. These flights still seem to be running but AA unprompted rebooked me on a LAX-LHR direct. As it happens I’ll have needed TP anyway, and it suits me better to fly direct. Just wondered if this is a regular thing when nothing else seems to have changed. Do they trawl through bookings looking to free up space on certain flights. I’ve had loads of AA changes, but usually only when flights get cancelled or re-timed.

xenole

I'm sure AA move anyone who looks as if they're on a TP run

I've been moved a few times, without informing me, from say 11am flights (when I've planned a nice lie in), 7:30am etc. flights to 6/6:30am ones. They probably assume you just want to fly so you're not fussed when you go, so they'll free up space for someone potentially more important who needs a seat on a specific flight.

I don't mind leaving at 6:30am from JFK. Bit of a pain arriving at 9:50pm and not getting to a hotel until towards 10:30pm-11pm, and then having to be up by 4:30am. Nice arriving into SFO by 10:30am though.
Most people in business seem to sleep with the blinds down on the early transcon flights to and from JFK.

At least BA have kindly changed a couple of flights for me so I can avoid this this time. Still 2-3 months to go, so expecting to get into double figures change wise.

Confus

No, but the algorithm picks what it thinks the customer wants - which for the vast majority of people is the quickest/shortest route. You can always call to change it back if you want. IIRC the cutoff for AA used to be about 4 hours - so if your original connection was longer than that, the algorithm would route you the same way as it decided you want to go to the intermediate point as well. That could have changed in the last few years though.