LucyK1806

I did it earlier in the month in 45 mins but with GE, following day my family took over 2 hours to complete immigration and collect bags.

However, BA had already provisionally booked us alternative flights on HA in biz for the next day if we missed our connection.

mikeyfly

Are these flights a long way off? Presumed they’re November onwards. With AAs ever changing schedules - just book the best one now and then see what happens. I’d be flabbergasted if nothing changed!

PUCCI GALORE

There is little that I can add except that 1.5 hours is beyond reason. I always travel hand luggage as that way I know where it is and what it is doing. I assume that you would arrive at TB Terminal and have to physically trot down the street to AA in T4. No there is no way that you could be certain of this, You'd only have to hit a few flights arriving Internationally and you could wait until the cows came home, Far too risky.

Daventry

Hi everyone,

Apologies for bumping this thread up but my SEA-HNL leg has been cancelled.

MMB returns an error when I try to see my rebooking options but as far as I can see on Google Flights I could take an earlier flight from SEA that would leave me with a 1h 45 min stopover instead of 3 hours.

The other option is to ask to be rerouted via LAX with a 2h 20 min stopover (I think this flight wasn’t originally available or maybe it was too expensive and didn’t make this deal worth it).

So the question is… is 2h 20 min doable in LAX and will BA reroute me through LAX or do I have to stick with my original SEA routing?

Thanks in advance.

OGG flyer

It depends on your appetite for risk but personally I would not do it. I once had a 3.5h connection and we barely made it because of immigration lines. Last few times were OK but a small departure delay may decrease your window substantially. Now when I fly to Hawaii via LAX I try minimum 4h or usually stay overnight and take flight following morning.

corporate-wage-slave

If you still hold a BUD-HNL ticket, then any sensible routing on BA + AA is allowed, with AS potentially achievable too. You are allowed to go a bit off a direct route under the Maximum Permitted Mileage rules (20% or so extra but there are exceptions). So given the complexity of this ticket I can see MMB would not be an efficient rebooking tool, you best call, but call up after researching the options. We have a lot of details but not the date of travel! So it's a bit difficult to advise further, 2 hours at LAX is do-able, if not you will just be rebooked on to the next flight, which is a nuisance but not totally avoidable even with a 6 hour connection. Some people find that irksome, but personally I prefer to keep it tight to minimise overall tiredness. In that respect I personally prefer to stay overnight in LAX and take a day flight from LAX to HNL but we're all different.

Daventry

This is for Sunday 5th February (so British half-term hasn’t started yet). An overnight stay in LAX doesn’t sound too bad when you compare it to landing at HNL at midnight.

USA_flyer

I've only ever finished my journey in LAX but I do recall that Immigration can be so variable, 2hr20m is still tight.

Its up to you and your risk appetite ultimately.

corporate-wage-slave

Well I go to HNL to work, so I'm pretty keen not to arrive too zonked, hence I'd be off to one of the many hotels near LAX - Hilton usually - for a good night's sleep, that last HNL section goes on forever if you started in BUD. But that's one option, and you could call BA to ask for an overnight stay in LAX provided you depart LAX within 24 hours. You could also pull the BUD flight forward to the previous day and stay over in London, but I don't think that helps matters. So BA281 arriving 15:55 to AA2205 / BA4758 departing 18:15 seems do-able, but as mentioned it's an individual thing as to whether you go for this or not. That won't be so busy in the States, it's not vacation time there.

Your bigger problem, though, is that this is so, so, so far away that AA will be changing this booking a dozen times between now and departure. BA may well do a few time changes too. This may be another reason for overnighting in LAX: even if AA does change flight times multiple times, there is always going to be an AM departure from LAX to HNL. And it should be possible to get from BUD to LAX in one day. So at a certain point you won't greatly care if BA or AA muck things around, your trips is still viable.

Daventry

I’d rather keep the departure on a Sunday so I can book my positioning flight for Saturday morning, so if such flight is rescheduled I won’t have to worry about missing my BUD-LHR leg.

Your point about changes in AA schedule has convinced me, I think I’ll ask to be rebooked onto BA281, spend the evening on LA and then continue to Hawaii in the morning.

I take it that now I can be rebooked onto a flight to OGG or KOA instead of HNL? Will BA let me make it open-jaw without additional costs?

corporate-wage-slave

For the cancelled flight only, you can switch to another airport within 300 miles. So I think that flight can be rebooked to OGG/KOA but the return flight stays in HNL (until that inevitably is changed).

RichieMc

What about LHR-DFW-HNL with an overnight in DFW? There is a morning flight that gets you to HNL at lunchtime and it’s a wide body with lie flat beds.

Daventry

Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind. Our original plan was to buy domestic flights to visit OGG and KOA, this cancellation would allow us to save the cash for one of those domestic flights if they get us to one of them directly… We need to ponder that vs lie flat bed to HNL! :-)

EDIT: Oh there’s a DFW-OGG morning flight with a lie flat bed too. RichieMc you’ve just made my day!!!

RichieMc

You can have your cake and eat it! Also lie flat on both DFW-OGG flights.
Edit: you beat me to it

ttuna3

I wouldn't even think about anything less than 2 hours without GE. Depending on when your flight gets to LAX you might end up in the late morning/early afternoon rush when the Immigration lines will be long and the backstage Customs will be backing things up a bit. Most of the time I've been out of TBIT within about 45 minutes, mostly waiting on the bags to come down the belt. If I'm lucky I've gotten out around a half an hour and my best has been 25 minutes to the curb. Of course I've been caught in a couple of epic meltdowns and only made my connecting flight on one of them when UA forgot to reprogram the 757s.