MisterBill

I am flying from LGA to Quito, Ecuador. I booked my flights through Celebrity Cruises, and they booked me on a flight through ATL with only a 1:13 layover and no later flight if I miss my connection. This seems like asking for trouble getting to an international flight with today's airport situation, even though it is a valid routing that DL sells. I would much rather take the earlier flight out (even better, I would prefer to be flying out of HPN) on a flight with a three-hour layover. DL isn't letting me try to change the flight on the website or app, and says to have the issuing party make the change or call DL. I've already asked Celebrity to change it, but they claim to have submitted it to DL and haven't heard back. If I call Delta, will they be willing (and able) to make the change without charging me a fee? I'd much rather sit in the PP lounge for a couple of hours than be concerned about missing the flight and potentially spending a day in ATL.

Background: I was originally booked on JetBlue through FLL on flights that I had picked and that had a long layer (friends who live there are on the second leg with us and were going to get us at the airport for a few hours). Then JetBlue decided to stop flying FLL-QIO three days of the week, including mine, leaving me with an LGA-FLL flight and nothing else. Celebrity finally rebooked me on DL and changed the return flight to DL as well, but on that one I'm flying back to HPN. But they booked me on what I consider a terrible connection. There's a fairly short connection going back, too. But I figure if I miss that flight I can get changed to one going to LGA since I'm renting a car, anyway.

BTW, the flight in question is DL2638, and it does appear to usually be on time. But it's also been late a couple of times, and of course past performance is no indicator of the future.

Shinyobjects

I'd work with the cruise line. If they goof something up, they'll spare no expense getting you caught up with your cruise.

Orange County Commuter

The cruise line is your travel agent. And they have to work Delta . That line about they’ve submitted it to Delta and nothings happened? Push back. This is not 1970 when you have to send a teletype request.😂. What they’re really saying is “we haven’t done anything and we’re hoping you’ll just go away if we stall you long enough”

MisterBill

Haven't had any success with the cruise line. The people I've spoken to tell me that they just submit the request and I thought that someone at Celebrity would be able to make the change. But the last time I called, they told me that they send a request to Delta and had allegedly not heard anything back (or else it was denied, since the flight has not changed).

flyerCO

This is a BULK ticket. Basically to avoid Celebrity being charged by DL, they insist DL approve a change. They'll only make it if the rebooked flights wouldn't involve extra cost if bought then and there.

MisterBill

I am already flying in a day earlier than the land tour in Quito begins and paying for the extra hotel night at my expense. This is a Galápagos cruise, so there's no "catching up", but that's not an issue since they already have you arrive two days before the cruise. I just don't feel like spending 24 hours in Atlanta because I missed the connection when I have a tour booked in Quito, and when putting me on an earlier flight to ATL would have been a simple solution to avoid the problem.

cre95

seems to me that you are covered to make it work. You’ll be checked in through Quito so there should be no issue connecting through Atlanta. You’ll be doing the transit all airside already with no TSA hurdles in Atlanta. I would check the status of your flight to Atlanta in the morning and if there is any indication that it might be delayed, call Delta and try and get on the earlier one then.

Mr. Tickets

When are you traveling and when did you book the flights?

MisterBill

Thanks. I was going to ask whether my concern was unfounded. Sounds like i might be. Worst case our luggage doesn't make it, we will hopefully get it the following day at our hotel.

MisterBill

Traveling in two weeks. The DL flights were booked around a month ago,, several weeks after Celebrity had notified me that my FLL-QIO flight no longer existed. Sadly, they did not call me when changing the book. I'd actually called them a few weeks earlier when I first got notified of the B6 flight change to ask for to be booked on the flight leaving from HPN with the three-hour layover, and got disconnected after being on the phone with Celebrity for 20 minutes. Foolishly, I thought they'd call me before picking new flights for me, so I did not call back. Even had the Galapagos desk contact the air people thinking it might carry more weight than my calling myself.

Good thing about being moved to DL is that they won't charge me a baggage fee while JetBlue would have (even for international flights, it surprised me, too). But no free Wi-Fi. And I get to see the new terminal at LGA.

Mithria

You are going to love the Galapagos! I just returned 3 weeks ago from a scuba diving trip there. What a unique, amazing experience. What struck me the most was how the wildlife (both above and below the water) was completely unafraid of us and carried on as if we weren't there.
I've transited ATL multiple times and as long as your flight is on time, you should have no problem making your connection. Enjoy your trip!

Mr. Tickets

Rule of thumb is don’t book air through any cruise line. They are not in the business to sell airline tickets, so they don’t know how to deal with things. Schedules change, seat assignments get lost and they don’t care to communicate. They also do not know how or care to know how to fix issues. Call the air desk of the cruise line. Explain the issue clearly. They have the same ability to get Delta to fix as you would have, if you booked directly with Delta. You just need to get the cruise line to understand what you want/expect. Delta ultimately has the responsibility to fix the issue, but you need to go through the cruise line air desk to start the communication. Assuming the flights are not already sold out, they will be able to fix. After it is fixed, go online to delta.com and make sure your frequent flyer number is in and the seats are assigned (as best they can be at this late date).

Good luck!

MisterBill

There are actually two schools of thought on that. The first is as you said, book on your own. The other says definitely book through the cruise line, because if something goes wrong, they are responsible for getting you to the ship. I actually ran into someone on our recent Iceland cruise who was flying into Reykjavík the same day as the cruise (bad move, obviously), and they weren't even flying directly there, they had a connection in a different European city (to save money). They missed their connection and the cruise. Celebrity made arrangements for them to get to our first stop where they could board, and paid for their hotel rooms. In my case, they had promotions where you could get free airfare or a credit towards your cruise and I could not change to the credit, so I had to take the flights. They did not charge me extra when they switched me to Delta, even though I'm pretty sure that the flights were higher than the original ones on B6.

Also, when Covid first started, I had a cruise booked out of Singapore and I had booked Singapore Air through Chase Travel (Expedia). Long story short, I ended up having to go through the US DOT to get my refund, and that was only after SG changed their policy three months post-flight to allow me to get a refund (but Expedia couldn't/wouldn't do it). If I had booked through the cruise line, the flight would have been cancelled when I cancelled the cruise. So it is not as cut and dry as you made it seem. On the Cruise Critic roll call thread, some idiot was saying, "that is why you always book air through the cruise line!" But of course we'd never experienced anything like that before, so it was idiotic to make it seem like we should have expected to have to cancel.

moondog

Isn't d-i MCT at ATL 40 or 45 minutes? While I wouldn't cut it that close with delay prone flights, more than an hour seems pretty safe to me in the instant case. And, as someone else pointed out above, if flight 1 is running late, odds are that the op will have enough of a heads up to revise the plan.

Shinyobjects

Then I think you're already covered for the worst case scenario, I believe.