RatherGhastly

Dear FlyerTalkers, I have been lurking here for a while, but finally signed up as I find myself in need of some advice.

Just over a week ago, I booked an open-jaw discount business fare in February 2023 on FCO-LHR-SEA, DEN-DFW-LHR-FCO in order to pay my last respects to a family friend who was entering the final stages of a terminal illness. Unfortunately, two days thereafter, I received word that my visit was no longer tenable. I am therefore at a bit of a nonplus about what to do with my flights: on the one hand, I should still like to see the family in Seattle, and I also have friends to visit in Denver, which is why the inbound journey originates there; on the other hand, the timing and duration of my trip is rather inconvenient, and I would not consider proceeding with the trip at all, had the tickets not been already paid for.

The flights are all BA marketed and ticketed (on one itinerary), but the first two inbound legs are on AA metal. In order to help me resolve my dilemma, I was wondering:

1. What are the chances of a schedule change/cancellation significant enough for me to cancel the entire itinerary for a full refund?

2. I booked the itinerary with full knowledge of the 40 min connection time in DFW (AA to AA metal) because the price was right, in anticipation that a schedule change would allow me to change to an earlier DEN-DFW flight (or even to drop one leg altogether). Am I justified in this expectation? Failing that, what are my chances of making the connection (AA1832 to AA50)? It is not a catastrophe if I were to get into Rome one day later, as that is pretty much the last flight to LHR, but I would be loath to shell out for a hotel room in DFW. (Or would AA, the operating carrier, cover this in the event of a missed connection?)

3. I also booked the itinerary without certain knowledge of my schedule in February, which will not become clear until November. What are the chances of a change/cancellation which would enable me to shift either or both of the out- and inbound by a day or two, or is this not even a possibility?

4. Should I decide to proceed with the trip, I will also need to book a SEA-DEN flight. Would be it best to wait until I know for certain whether the trip is going ahead to book, or should I do so now, in anticipation that a schedule change would allow me to cancel for a refund, and then simply to swallow the fare if the change does not eventuate?

Any and all advice or perspectives on the above would be most welcome. Thank you in advance.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum.

There is a high chance of a cancellation on those sectors, I would say about 50% chance of at least one cancellation. Note that where AA reshuffles the timetable and rebooks you on a near identical timing then that may not change any codeshares in the booking. But broadly speaking we can rely on AA to makes some changes, typically 3 months before departure, or BA to alter the Rome flights. If you get a cancellation - a real one - then you can have a full refund. If you get a significant timing change then you can move by -2 to plus 2 days, if instead of the refund you rebook a cancelled flight then it's -3 day to +14 day movement allowed. For SEA to DEN, my experience of USA airlines is that so long as you don't book under a month to travel you can normally get a good value fare somehow or other, particularly if you are flexible about timings. The exception would be around public holidays such as Thanksgiving. Fares are generally lowest at 6 weeks to departure, as a very general rule, so I'm not a huge advocate of making speculative / uncertain trips many months off. But we may be in a new dispensation for travel, so who knows, 6 weeks may now be 6 months.

The timing at DFW is fine by the way, it's a huge place but very slick. There would be 20 or 30 minutes slack in the DEN-DFW timings anyway. But yes I'm suspect you would be able to move it, and if you booking goes badly wrong AA may just put you on the direct DEN service.

DeltaFlyingProf

Welcome to FT!

You are asking us help you speculate. Any answer here is going to be just guesses and data points. So I will give you a data point: I have a ticket FCO-LHR-LAX in December. The FCO-LHR flight was canceled and they rebooked me with a 10 minute connection in LAX .
Pretty much all of my transatlantic tickets have had major changes on which the GGL line told me I could change the dates if that would help.
Your chances of a change before your flights is probably good but not guaranteed.

For the domestic ticket, US airlines will allow you to cancel and get a credit for the full amount of the ticket as long as you don't buy one of the basic fares. The credit is typically valid for one year from the purchase date. Take AS and you should be safe there.
However it is unlikely you will get the best fare by booking so far in advance. The airlines have jumped at the revenge travel trend to increase prices. I think they'll probably come down before your trip. I do fly the DEN-SEA regularly on AS and prices are painful right now.

VSLover

fortunately for you, the chances i'd say are quite high on the AA segments as they only adjusted their schedule thru december a few weeks ago--so as noted above, the jan/feb changes will come -- for example next week, AA are running 7 nonstops from DEN-DFW on their current summer schedule.

february, they still have 9 nonstops per day for sale and given everything else going on, it is just unlikely they would maintain all of those.

barring a cancellation, i have benefited from slight re-timings resulting in AA flight number changes as well. so there are many things on the AA flight side that can work to your benefit. it just may not be seen for another one or two months.

orbitmic

I guess some "change" is extremely likely (especially on the DEN-DFW) but indeed, the question is whether it is a schedule change or an actual cancellation. Having just had the experience of both on some forthcoming itineraries:

- Flight cancellation would give you a right to cancellation and refund which seems to be your preferred option

- When cws rightly mentions a "significant" schedule change, the current rule seems to be >4hrs which is a lot more than it used to be. Below that, you can change flights but most annoyingly, the fare basis has to remain the same which can be very hard if you booked something in one of the cheapest buckets.

RatherGhastly

Thank you, CWS, DFP, VSL and orbitmic for your advice and clarifications, which have all been most helpful.

I suppose I was asking the forum to help me speculate, but I was also after policy positions, which is to say, what might be possible should the change/cancellation eventuate. To be honest, I'm not sure at this stage whether I would prefer a refund or to proceed with the trip, despite its principal end having been voided, because I think I have already committed to the idea in my mind. At any rate, until a change/cancellation occurs (or not, as the case may be), I can't do anything, and just have to sit tight. I'll come to a firm decision at the end of November, when my schedule for February will have been confirmed, as I shall have to book additional flights/hotels at that time as well. It is, in any case, reassuring to know that the possibilities are reasonably open at this stage, so thank you again for all the help.

P.S., DeltaFlyingProf, you mentioned that SEA-DEN fares are painful right now. What you would consider to be a reasonable one-way J/Y fare for the middle of February?

fluffymitten

One angle, as you say you had a specific reason for travel which is sadly no longer viable, is to investigate what refund you would get by cancelling and check with your travel insurance company if they will cover the rest.

DeltaFlyingProf

About $100 in economy (not basic economy) and a bit under $200 for business/first were possible before, but right now the cheapest I see are $149 and $319. I'd be willing to go to $250 for J if pressed, but would like to see going those prices go back lower.

Correction: On some days I see $104 and $289, but that seems to be limited to very few days.

One note I would make is that if you are going to fly AS again within a year, you could always buy the best fare you find now for your preferred date and later change if you see cheaper fares. Do this under an AS Mileage Plan account and the difference will be credit it to your account's wallet. And don't worry that it would be booked under your AS MP program. AS makes it easy to change where you credit the flight at check in. And you can check in as many times you want..

RatherGhastly

Thanks for the suggestion, although I'm not sure if I can get anything back from cancelling (possibly the taxes and surcharges) as it was a discount business fare. At any rate, there is probably no advantage to cancelling now, as a schedule change significant enough may allow me to cancel for a full refund, besides which I have not definitively decided to abandon the trip, and, indeed, I think I might even be leaning towards proceeding with it. My priority at this stage is probably to wait for a schedule change that will enable me to change the 40 min connection at DFW for something more comfortable, as I would prefer not to have to pay for a hotel room there in the event of a missed connection.

RatherGhastly

Oh well... it seems that the AA schedule for February has been loaded, and my DEN-DFW segment has only moved by a few minutes at each end, such that I now have a 45-minute connection in DFW, but not enough for me to get on an earlier flight. I suppose I'll have to take my chances after all. In another thread, I was told ‘ice in DEN + long taxi at DFW = Grand Hyatt’. I hope not!

RatherGhastly

Well, the flight-cancellation gods have answered my prayers, although I would appreciate further advice, as I am not quite sure how to proceed.

It seems that my original DFW-LHR segment (BA1505 = AA 50 leaving at 20:35) was cancelled, and substituted with BA1521 (= AA78) leaving at 20:45. The DEN-DFW segment (BA1876 = AA1832 arriving at 19:48) has had minor timing changes (of a few minutes), but remains essentially unchanged. I have just received an email telling me that I should log in to MMB to accept the rebooked flight, or claim a refund. However, when I do so, I receive a message saying: We’re sorry. We rebooked you onto a flight you cannot board given the connection time. You can rebook your journey or cancel this booking. There is no option to accept the new flight, merely to cancel or contact BA to change my trip.

Now, I am slightly confused, because I don't quite understand why the connection time is now impossible, given that I had 40 mins (= MCT) originally, which has now increased to 57 mins. (I still have 150 mins in LHR for my onward flight to FCO, so that shouldn't be the problem, unless it is.) Now, I'd like to avoid the Grand Hyatt if possible, so, ideally, I'd like to get myself onto an earlier DEN-DFW flight. (Alternatively, there is a direct DEN-LHR flight at 16:30, but it's on a BA 787-9, so I'm not sure I would opt for that, even if it were offered.) I suppose I have no choice but to ring BA, but before I do, I just thought solicit some advice to prepare myself for the call.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. (And for the sake of clarity, this is the return leg of a BA-ticketed itinerary in J.) Thank you.

corporate-wage-slave

With a relatively complex trip and further personal preferences, your best bet is to come up with your absolute preferred schedule, and a fallback, then call the contact centre to get it rebooked. I wouldn't read anything into the online messages.

RatherGhastly

Thanks to everyone who has helped me above, especially CWS. I am now trying to resolve this situation, and could use further advice.

Just to summarise, I am booked in J flying DEN-DFW-LHR-FCO in February, with the first two sectors on AA metal. A cancellation/rebooking of the DFW-LHR resulted in a 53 minute connection at DFW. Even though this meets MCT, when I log in to MMB, I get the message "We’re sorry. We rebooked you onto a flight you cannot board given the connection time. You can rebook your journey or cancel this booking.", and the only available option is to cancel. Otherwise, I need to contact BA to rebook. My preferred solution is to get myself onto an earlier DEN-DFW flight, moving from BA1876 to BA1875.

Well, to-day, I contacted BA via live chat, and I was initially told that that there was no availability on BA1875 (even though seats are still available for sale on the AA website). On further probing, I was told that I could not change just the DEN-DFW sector. The entire return journey had to be rebooked. I either had to confirm all my flights as they are, with the 53 min connection in DFW, or I was given the option of a being rebooked on the direct DEN-LHR flight instead.

I suppose I have two questions, really. Does what I was told seem correct/reasonable, i.e., that I cannot just rebook the DEN-DFW sector, or is this a HUCA situation? And if this is correct, what would you do? Stick with the 53 min connection in DFW, or rebook on the direct DEN-LHR service, which would be on a BA A380? The reason I am disinclined to go with the latter is that I would probably end up with one of the middle J seats (as I don't have any status and am disinclined to pay for seat selection), but this has to be balanced against the 53 min connection in DFW.

Well, any thoughts on the above would be most appreciated.

Furby

53 minutes should be plenty of time to connect in DFW, even to an international flight. My bigger concern would be snow in Denver at that time of year delaying the flight out of Denver. If it was me I would take the non stop, and pay for the seat if it matters that much to me. Weather delays in Denver are not unlikely and will be much easier to manage flying non stop to LHR.

JayhawkCO

Just so the OP has a slightly different perspective, weather delays at DEN, despite our snowy reputation are a) not that common and b) when they do exist, they're typically well forecasted a week out and travel waivers are put in place. If there is a travel waiver, you will have a lot more flexibility to change flights.