Christmas Eve flight just "changed" from direct to non-direct at terrible time
 

I have had my Christmas Eve flight booked since early August--a direct flight at a time that would get us to family in the afternoon for our son's first Christmas Eve with family. I just received an e-mail from US Airways that my direct flight has "changed" to a nondirect flight through Charlotte that gets in at 10:02 on Christmas Eve. Are you kidding me? I highly doubt that US Airways would cancel their only direct flight on Christmas Eve. It seems highly likely that US Airways is cancelling tickets on overbooked flights and trying to rebook them as "changed" flights. This is absolutely unacceptable, and who in their right mind at US Airways thinks that a change like this on CHRISTMAS EVE is appropriate?

Um. Did you check the schedule to see if a nonstop actually exists?

How about some flight details? Either way you can cancel if they changed something like that on you. I would take the opportunity to change it if being with family is important to you. We all know what can go wrong with even just a direct flight.

If you have a schedule change, see if there is a different non-stop or 1-stop flight on US Airways on the same day that works for you. If there is, they should change it for you if you call in without issue. If no US Airways flight schedule works for you, you are entitled to a full refund and will need to find a flight for yourself on another airline. It's unfortunate when an airline changes their schedule and it screws you over, but there really isn't much you can do about it if no other flights they do work for you unfortunately.

Take a breath, Cowboy!
 

Actually, in my experience, that's highly unlikely.

As others have suggested, do your homework. See what they have that works better for you and call US. I suspect they will work with you get a flight schedule that's closer to your original booking -- especially if you provide them with a specific suggestion that appeals to you.

If they don't have a good option, take a refund and buy elsewhere. You still have time to make something work.

To be clear...when you say "direct" flight, do you mean non-stop Because..technically a direct flight is a single flight number, but can include a stop along the way (e.g. LGA-CLT-MIA). Are you sure your original flight was always a nonstop flight and didn't already include a stop (but not change of plane)? Can you give us some details?

After more research, it appears that two nonstop flights have been cancelled--the Christmas Eve flight I was on and the Christmas Day flight of the same time. I understand that flight cancellations happen, however, I find it surprising that the Christmas Eve afternoon flight would cancel. Only two flights go from DCA to OMA nonstop--US Airways and Frontier (and before I get jumped on, I know that OMA is a small market, however, that small market serves mostly all of Nebraska and western Iowa and I have never had a flight cancellation on that route).

Had this cancellation happened a month or two ago, I could have looked to book on Frontier (and besides, I prefer to avoid Frontier). However, our budget will not allow us paying double for tickets at this point.

With this cancellation, US Airways has basically given up any passengers that want nonstop flights b/n DCA and OMA to Frontier Airlines which, I would guess, would be one of the busier flying days for that route. That flight for Frontier has typically been full in the past--this was the first year that US Airways started flying nonstop DCA-OMA.

I am now on the 6:45 a.m. flight. If anyone on this thread ends up on that plane with me, know this--my son is typically a great traveler. He has flown at least 5 roundtrips already and he is 7 months old. He doesn't cry or fuss on planes (at least he hasn't)--but we also take flights that are conducive to that. I can promise NOTHING for 6:45 in the morning--and a flight landing at 10:00 p.m. with an hour drive after was also out of the question.

Since the schedule that includes December has been out a while, I suspect that these flights were cancelled because they had very low loads. US, like most/all other carriers, cuts schedules down for slow periods of the big travel holidays to keep from flying mostly empty airplanes around. On the flip side of the coin, they'll often add flights during the busy periods of big travel holidays.

One fortunate thing for you is that your flight was cancelled after the schedule was published so you can get a full refund - Frontier, though you don't prefer them, does still have a non-stop on Christmas Eve day for $120 O/W. The flip side of that is that you lost the US non-stop scheduled at a time convenient for you and your family.

OP's second post makes more sense than the first, which was just plain silly.

There are several good options:

1. Have US rebook xIAD. There is service via ORD at 9:20 AM, arriving OMA at 12:56 PM or 12:31 PM arriving OMA at 5:27 PM.

2. OP can cancel for a full refund and then rebook Frontier for $120 non-stop xDCA.

Schedule changes and holiday cancellations are an unfortunate part of life.

Good point. I never thought of it that way before. One always learns something on FT.

At least US gives the OP plenty of lead time to make new arrangements if desired.

barry