American Airlines flight changes

[brady bear]

I had an 45 minute lay over in NC when my mom passed away, well the plane was delayed leaving Orlando, due to weather with the incoming plane
and I did miss my connection flight by minutes and NO that plane did not wait for any of us.
To top it off the connection flight was on the other side of the airport. Had to wait another 3 hrs for the next plane. Never ever again..
There is a hotel in Miami airport.. not the greatest, but not the worst and you are in the airport.
Another idea is fly one airline there and another one back; we did that before too.

[Traceyd14]

I flew across country and back in August. Everything was fine then. The airports are like ghost towns and boarding and deplaning was very organized and quicker than usual. I try not to book more than 12 hours or two stops of flight segments unless it's to Asia or the Middle East. If you have to do an overnight through design or due to other circumstances hotel selection is critical. I pick airport hotels that have free shuttles and usually try to use points or free nights to stay over. I have had my bags checked through after surprise layovers in Miami, Charlotte, Philly, Detroit, Chicago and a couple of places in Asia. Depending on your situation you can have your bags checked through on your flight the next day and just use a carry-on for the night in the hotel. Pam and I did that when we were forced to stay in Miami one night due to a late departure from Aruba. For the past 40 years my backpack always has a change of underwear, toothbrush and paste, and a clean shirt (and a couple of mini bottles of Bombay Sapphire) cause you just never know. Try not to stress over it and just go with the flow. Way too many people let air travel stress them out when all they need to do is plan for the worst, hope for the best and roll with it. The way things are going I would expect flights to change again as we get closer, especially since AA has laid off so many employees.

Walt, this is excellent advice. Jon wants to wait a couple weeks to see if anything else changes similar to what Schexc was saying. We do have lots of options.

[Traceyd14]

I called AA and had a hold time of 1 hour and 30 minutes - luckily you don't have to wait on hold they will call you back. Since they changed our flight by 60 minutes exactly, we are not eligible for a refund (only a credit) - had it been 61 minutes a refund would have been an option. We could rebook on the overnight in Miami but no guarantee we would get our business class seats back for the leg from MIA to AUA because right now they all show as full (even though we currently 2 of the occupants - the way they have to rebook our seats won't look free until after the flight change is made). I wouldn't be super picky about business but because AA is choosing to fill their flights - I don't want to be crammed in with someone right next time me.
So the verdict - wait and see for now and hope they make another change to our flight so we can get the refund. I am also going to watch the southwest flight from BWI - if the price gets as low as it was when it was first published we may just go that way to have non-stop flights and keep the American credit for some time next year.

[Traceyd14]

Walt and others on AA, check your flights, more changes for early December today. This one worked out in our favor. We are leaving Aruba 2 hours earlier and we will likely get home before midnight, rather than landing at midnight. This is a good change for us. This is a connection through Charlotte coming home.

[robin]

Thanks Tracy! I didn't get notified but I checked our flight down and instead of leaving at 8:10 and getting in at 1:47 we now leave at 7:30 and get in at 1:00. They did change our seats I think, but as things get closer I'll look at it again to see if we can get seats with no one next to us(we are both on the aisle).

[Andrea J.]

they changed our return AUA to MIA to MCO

now later in afternoon !

thank you Tracey

[WaltVB]

Thanks Tracey, we are now leaving and arriving home earlier before midnight also. I just hope they are done changing things around, it's our third change.

[WaltVB]

After further review, our flights had changed for the better, but our seats had changed and we were separated on one flight. We were even bumped from first class on one of the flights. I called American, the wait was 10-15 minutes so I had them call me back. They called about 10 minutes later and Angela, a most excellent reservation agent, put us back in first on all of the flights with seats together. I'm not the biggest fan of American, but they came through this time.

[robin]

I told the kids about the changes since American failed to notify everyone. Their direct flight was cancelled and they will have a layover. I think American isn't notified people just so they don't have to deal with people calling and complaining.

[robin]

I just went back on to AA and clicked on "get flight alerts" on the reservation page. I don't know if it will now let us know if there are changes.