They put her on UA 2827 with a 1h40m connection time at FRA which should be enough IF this replacement fight happens and isn’t further delayed. Can I demand UA rebook her on a partner with flights arriving at a similar time? They are saying because the new flight theoretically gives her enough time, no change

😂, don’t focus on the semantics man...the point is, can this reasonably be expected in these circumstances or would it be something no agent would do.

yea 1h40 is plenty of time IF it goes on time. I just worry about further delays or this replacement flight being cancelled since something seems off.

1 hour 40 is plenty of time at FRA. You’re right, it could get delayed and miss a connection. Your original could have been delayed long enough to miss the connections also. There’s no point I ask in what if, especially when there’s not much reason to worry (ie, impending weather that is likely to develop into IRROPS). Life happens and your wife will get to NCE. Hopefully on the original connection. But there are other flights later if she misses it. Sucks if it comes to that, but everyone on here has dealt with it at some point.

I disagree slightly - you can ‘demand’ anything, but it doesn’t mean one will get their demand, especially when any re-route is at UAs discretion.

I agree that demanding is rarely (if ever) the right tactic, especially with an airline - I find being nice and phrasing these as requests, using words like please and thank you, smiling, etc. often gets me the outcome I prefer. Not always, but often. If I were the OP, that’s what I’d try.

but the semantics does matter. If you go up to an agent and say in an angry voice ‘put me on LH flight XXX now’, you’re likely to have the agent respond in kind. If they’re really nice, they’ll just say no I can’t, you’ve been rebooked with plenty of layover time, without even looking. At worst, they’ll respond in the same tone. Do you like to have soemone use a demanding tone right off the bat? If you go up and nicely ask something like ‘my flight has been rebooked, but I’d prefer to have a longer layover in FRA, and I see LH has a flight leaving at about the same time as my original, can you see if there is a way to put me on that flight, please’ they are much more likely to give it a shot and see if they can rebook you.

replacement flights happen all the time, I wouldn’t worry unless there is antrue reason to believe the replacement flight coild be delayed (showing late inbound, expected weather, etc.). Again, if you want something else and ask nicely, and you’re more likely to have the request granted.

I suspect that they wanted the current UA 960 passengers to have lower priority (or not all automatically get seats) for space on the special section flight, perhaps because there are stranded passengers from earlier IROPs that should take precedence over nonstatus travlers on UA 960. If the flight number is cancelled, they won't owe VDB/IDB compensation to anyone who isn't confirmed on the special section.