Members,

On June 8th I purchased 2 dirt cheap DFW-MAD tickets ($399 each r/t). The departure time on the return leg was 9:45am. I received an email that day detailing my purchase. The CONFIRMATION email came on June 26th with a departure time of 11:50am. So I made travel arrangements accordingly with the 11:50 departure. Now several months later I get an email saying the flight time has been changed to 9:45am (the original departure time), which affects some plans we have made (considering our confirmation email said 11:50am departure, we made a train reservation from Barcelona accordingly).

The outbound leg (DFW-MAD) is on United (they "own" the ticket") and the return leg is on Air Canada. All of this was booked through Expedia (side note, very awful to deal with). I called both United and Air Canada who told me I must speak with Expedia. I spent 5 hours on the phone with them, finally speaking with corporate tier 3 customer service. They spoke with the airlines who would not offer a "waiver" to change the flight time and told me tough luck. Is there anything I can do at this point to change the flight?

Thank in advance.

Dr. Atkins

Unfortunately there is nothing untoward going on here. Schedules change. Twice is rare, but it happens.

You have two options
1) get a refund and get your own transportation to and from Spain
2) change your train tickets

(I would not have recommended taking a train from Barcelona to Madrid arriving that morning in the first place.)

You will get nowhere with Exp. - OTAs like Exp, Orbitz etc are best avoided because in case of schedule changes like this it becomes very complicated to get things solved or even to get a refund; to the extent possible you should book directly with the airline. As you have discovered, the airlines refuse to deal with you once you have booked with a TA/OTA as the TA is supposed to fix it. Exp customer service is horrible IMO.

I think you need to rebook/book new train tickets. But don't do it now - wait for shortly until your return date as further schedule changes may occur. IMO, booking train tickets this far out and with a short transfer time to a flight, where schedule changes may occur, is like asking for troubles.

This is a key point. You should get back to Barcelona the night before to avoid a potential nightmare if the train is delayed.

Good score on the plane tickets, BTW.

Have fun. Barcelona is one of my favorite cities!

I do appreciate your feedback! Cheers