What Rights With A Cancelled EU Flight?
 

Hoping I got the right forum. . .
I will be flying from Florence to LA in two months on Iberia, with a connection in Madrid. Iberia just cancelled my nonstop flight from MAD-LAX, about two months before the flight. Some genius tried to rebook me on an Iberia flight leaving about 10 hours before I get to Madrid. Apparently the only nonstop on that date is the cancelled one. So, I think I will probably have to take the next nonstop on that route, which is 24 hours later. This is all on a single itinerary, booked as a mileage ticket through AA. What rights do I have here? I know my rights if I got to the airport and found that my flight had been cancelled, but what rights do I have when they did it two months in advance? Are there some rules I can look at?

Thanks for any help.

Call AA. For them to sort out. Have a list of possible flights that work for you, but with ff partners they are limited with what they can do.
For schedule changes/cancellation ~8 weeks before EC261 may not apply (others will comment)
Do want the flights to be sorted or just read rules?

IB--->Flying IB / Iberia: seat, ticket, PNR, earning, award issues (consolidated)

Two months out there is no compensation for cancelled flights. The ticketing carrier should put you on another flight, but has no ability to force award space on a partner carrier that suits you, and will not buy a revenue ticket. Therefore your option at this stage is to find a solution with AA that suits you and is possible for them, remembering that it is not AA's problem that IB cancelled their flight. It is too early to comment on the specifics of EC261 applicability at this stage.

The 'genius' who rebooked you was likely a bot that just looked at the nearest flight on the leg that got cancelled. It would have caught up with the mis match with your connection from Florence at some point. This is pretty standard practice and it usually comes out in the wash.

Rather then beef about that you need to be proactive and research reasonable, alternative routings that work for you and put those to AA.

That might inlude e,g, MAD-DFW/JFK (or other AA hub) and connect to LAX from there or perhaps BA to LHR then AA to LAX.

AA can't force partners to open up reward seats but they can open up rewards on their own metal.


But basically your rights uner EU261 are

1. re-routing to the same destination at the earliest opportunity (under comparable conditions);
2. later rerouting, at the passenger's convenience, to the same destination under comparable conditions (subject to seat availability); or
3. a refund of the ticket as well as a return flight to the point of first departure, when relevant.

Maybe check award space on BA from Florence to LHR. If you can get there, AA could open up space on their own metal to fly you.

edit. sorry - did see the above post suggesting the same.

I was hoping to avoid a connection, because I was planning on buying wine at the duty free at the airport and bringing it on the flight, and the last time I put it in my luggage, it broke, permanently dying all of my clothes. If I connect, I'll have to put it in my checked luggage at the connection point.
Right now, IB systems have been down for a couple of days, so I can't rebook on them, and they are the only nonstop from Madrid. Maybe I'll wait until their system is back up.

Definitely can't do that. We have a dinner reservation in Madrid on the stopover that we don't want to cancel.

I guess, worse comes to worst, I'll do the FLR-MAD-LHR-LAX routing, since the LHR-LAX is OK. But we're flying coach back to the US, and IB has been pretty decent in coach lately, while AA really sucks lately.

Should be no problem with duty free as long as its in a STEB

You booked on AA you need to be talking to them not IB even though it's an IB flight that got cancelled.

Yes, but if I want to be booked on a nonstop, AA has to be able to access IB's inventory, and it can't do that while the IB systems are down.

BTW, I contacted AA earlier today. They said that IB had to handle it and transferred me to IB. IB said that, because AA booked the ticket, there was nothing it could do, and transferred me back to AA South America. All three reps had me on hold for 15 to 20 minutes. After 1 hour on the call, I had to leave because I had a meeting, and nothing's been resolved yet.

Now this is really irritating. I called back and finally got through. Got some lady on the phone who told me I had to take a connecting flight that left at 7:30 the next morning. We get into Madrid at 10:55 the night before. I asked if we could back up the IB flight into Madrid to the one that arrived at 2:30 pm. because there was mileage award availability on that flight. She said no because it's only business class availability. I asked if we could move the outgoing to a later time, and she also said no. I told her that, if we get in at 10:55 pm, we're not even going to get to sleep at the hotel until 2 am, and we would miss a 7:30 am flight the next day. She refused to move the outgoing flight to the following day because it would be more than 24 hours. So, I told her that I would have to talk it over with my wife to decide what to do, and she told me that I had to take the 7:30 am flight right now or they would cancel our leg back to the US. I told her that I couldn't accept a flight that I knew we would miss without first talking to my wife, and she told me that the schedule would certainly change between now and the end of March. I'm not willing to take that risk, and the last thing I want is to wind up stuck in Madrid because I missed the flight out.

Really irritated right now. . .

Are you talking to IB or AAdvantage?
Talk to AA and have some realistic options/suggestions (IB BA AA)
AA cannot force an award opening on IB

For a 22:55 arrival you should get to an (airport) hotel before 02:00

I'm talking to AA. And, we're not staying at an airport hotel. We're staying at the AC Hotel Recoletos.

EC261/2004 article 8 certainly applies. IB is liable to rebook you for free in C from FLR to LAX.
In case IB is continuing to stonewall, you may purchase a cash ticket and sue back the money from IB.

I wonder if you might get more responses in a heavier used forum related to the airline(s) in question. Might be worth asking a mod to move it? Anyway, best of luck, it seems an absolute pain in the neck.