burk

I will be retiring in Dec and moving to SFalls South Dakota. I travel to Asia generally during Jan or Feb. what's the best way to plan for possible weather delays at the SFalls airport that would affect my whole trip to Asia?

guv1976

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The best you can do is make sure to book everything on a single ticket, so that the first carrier would be responsible for protecting you in the event you miss a connecting flight due to its delivering you late to the connecting point.

You can also consider booking a longer connection if one is available, but then the downside is that if your first flight is on time, you'd have to cool your heels that much longer at the connecting point.

burk

But is the airline responsible for still hooking me up in SFO, for example , if my flight is weather delayed in Sioux Falls? I thought they weren't if it was a weather delay.

guv1976

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If everything is on one ticket, the late-delivering carrier is responsible for getting you to your final ticketed destination. If the delay is due to weather, they might not have to pay for a hotel or meals, but they cannot just throw up the hands and say, "We got you to SFO; now you're on your own."

Often1

The problem is also that just because the late-delivering carrier has the duty to rebook doesn't mean that there is anything convenient to be rebooked.

If you enjoy SFO for instance, as you are on an international itinerary, your connections can be up to 24 hours. Book yourself an overnight and have a good time.

MSPeconomist

If you're concerned, the idea of an overnight connection (up to 24 hours on an international itinerary doesn't count as a stopover) would solve most of the problem and keep you from worrying. If you're retired, presumably you'll have time and will be more concerned about not arriving at the destination when expected (hotel charges for rooms not used, prepaid/nonrefundable activities, etc.). After some experience in this, you may discover favorite places (and reasonably priced airport hotels) to spend a night along the way. You might even discover that this type of schedule is less tiring and allows you to arrive at the destination in better shape. YMMV.

Something else you might want to consider is driving to MSP instead of flying out of Sioux Falls. Some MSP airport hotels offer rates that include seven days of parking, including airport shuttle service. If you spend a night at the beginning and end of your stay (so you're not driving back when badly jet lagged), that gets you two weeks of airport parking for not a lot more than the hotel room rates, and you can totally avoid the connecting flights on small aircraft.

OTOH I know some people on FT who would do the opposite and drive away from a hub to fly out of a nearby close airport (such as Rochester MN from MSP) to earn more miles and segment credit while sometimes getting lower fares.

For WX delays, airlines increasingly don't give hotel and meal vouchers, although they might still do so for top tier elites. Often people here on FT advise trip insurance, but IMO unless a cruise, some tour package, or a special expensive hotel with a tough cancellation policy is included, to me it makes more sense to self insure assuming that one has a homeowner type policy for belongings (including electronics) and good medical insurance worldwide that covers emergency medical evacuations. Retirement might mean transitioning from an employer's healthi insurance coverage to medicare or Obamacare, so be careful that you have worldwide coverage, ideally not just for life or death emergencies (as is typical for managed care plans). A private jet to bring you home to good medical facilities from halfway around the world is extraordinarily expensive, but a hotel room and a few airport meals when you're stranded are expenses that you should be able to cover when the need arises.

burk

Thanks for the nice response. Several have mentioned scheduling like an overnight in San Fran, for example, and making it within the 24 hours allowed for connection allowed for international flights, etc.

I don't see how this would help if my concern is being delayed because of the snow in Sioux Falls. Any delay there would probably be more than a few hours delay, right? Like maybe a day or two or so? So, I don't see how draggign out the connecting flight at, say, SFO, would help.

Seems the best way would be to just book on the same airline the whole way and if delayed because of weather in Sioux Falls, they would have to figure out how to get you to Asia. Sure, might be some hotel cancellation necessary on the Asia end, i guess...and I guess stretching the connecting flight out at SFO ON THE SAME AIRLINE might give one a better chance if the snow delay was only a few hours, etc...

guv1976

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As long as all flights are on a single ticket, I don't think it makes any difference whether all flights are on the same carrier. The late-delivering carrier will still be responsible for getting you to your final destination, either on their metal, or somebody else's. In fact, depending on what your final destination is, the carrier that gets you from FSD to SFO might not even serve your final destination!

sdsearch

I would think the bigger concern would be not delays but cancellations. If there's a true delay (your original flights goes out but goes out late), they have to get you to your final destination somehow. But what if you book a flight to far away starting out on day X, and all flights out Sioux Falls on days X, X+1, and X+2 are totally cancelled? Does your whole trip get cancelled? I don't know, but it seems to me you have to figure out that specific scenario. Please stop using the word "delay" when what happens to the flight out of Sioux Falls is actually "cancellation". How an airline handles a delay can be totally different than how it handles a cancellation, so you need to look at those two scenarios separately, and not treat them as the same thing.

burk

This is my concern.

burk

I will be moving to Sioux Falls South Dakota from SF Bay Area to retire but will want to continue my winter flights to Asia. My concern is there may be times when flights are canceled due to bad weather out of Sioux Falls. I think this would be different from a delay where they would still get you to your destination to Asia, let's say Hong Kong, somehow.

But if there is a snowstorm and the flight is canceled, what happens? Is it treated like a delay and they still reschedule you? Thanks in advance.

Doc Savage

You'll be put on the next available flights. You can usually check what flights are available and be moved to those if you request.

You will usually be responsible for your own lodging if delays are due to weather.

Didn't you post this same thing a few days ago?

burk

I'm not talking about a delayed flight, but a cancellation due to weather...maybe it amounts to the same thing...

Doc Savage

Yes, same thing.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...l#post25052444

burk

So if it is supposed to go Monday, but can't reschedule until Thursday because all those flights are cancelled , it's treated the same way...so they reschedule the flight to Chicago, Narita in Tokyo, and Bangkok, for example??