It ended well, but left me with questions!

[hiccups]

I'll say upfront that this eventually worked out, but with so many knowledgeable flyers here, I wondered about this situation and if it's common.  This will be kind of long to provide the background.

 

In December, we booked business class air on United through Azamara's Choice Air, CMH to NCE, and return flight BCN to CMH.  I made a mistake and didn't notice the very tight connection time on the return flight--at EWR we had only a 70 minute layover.  The last time we came back from Europe through EWR (I think on American--I don't know if the airline matters), it took an additional 25 minutes to get my husband's golf bags from baggage claim.  If that happened on this trip, we probably wouldn't be able to make the connection.

 

Within a month of booking, we received notification of a change in our outgoing flight.  I called Choice Air and mentioned my concern with our EWR-CMH connection, and asked if there was any possibility of changing that flight to a later one.  The Choice Air rep spoke with United and was told that because we had paid for business class and the later flight was an aircraft that did not have first/business class seats, they couldn't change our flight.  I thought it wasn't likely they'd change us anyway because those return flights hadn't changed, but I figured it was worth a phone call.

Last night I logged into United to check our flights, and discovered our EWR-CMH flight had changed flight numbers and aircraft, to one without first/business class, and we had been assigned to economy seats.  

I called United, explained that our flight number and aircraft had changed, and in addition to not receiving the class of seats we'd paid for, that I thought that flight was under the required connection time.  I was placed back on hold, and when the agent came back she told me the minimum connection time was 75 minutes, but they weren't going to move us to the later flight.  She said if we missed our connection, they'd put us on a later flight.

I'd been very accommodating and polite, but at that point said they'd booked us on a flight with less than the minimum connection time, and we'd paid for business class and they had stuck us in coach.  I also told her that on an earlier call I'd been told since we'd paid for business we couldn't be put on a flight without business/first class seats, so why had they done it now, stuck us in coach and not even notified us?  She put me back on hold.  Eventually, after a total time on the call of an hour and 15 minutes, they moved us to the later flight and we got our business/first class seats back.  Now we have a layover of two and a half hours, which makes us feel much better.

So, questions for experienced flyers.  If you book a ticket that doesn't specifically indicate mixed cabins, is the airline required to keep you in the category of ticket you purchased, or does that depend on your ticket's fine print?  Is the fact that we bought through Choice Air (and therefore I assume a ticket with a lot of restrictions) why we weren't notified?  Or was it because even though our flight number and aircraft changed, the time of the departure didn't change, it's considered the same flight?

I learned about minimum connection times on this board.  Why does it seem that often it's ignored by the airlines?  If someone misses a connection, is the airline always going to get them get on a later flight?  It seems in our situation that the only reason we got our flight changed was because I complained they weren't putting us in the seats we paid for, rather than because we might not make the flight. 

[sumiandkage]

The airline contract of carriage can be summed up as 'changes and stuff happen, we will do our best to get you to your final destination one way or another but reserve the right to change how this happens at any time.' I live in an area where the four closest commercial airports are prone to bag fog at times in the winter so it's not uncommon for a plane to divert to Dothan or Birmingham, AL and then get to your target airport by charter bus. The CoC gives the airline the flexibility to do this rather than to just cancel the flight outright and leave people in Atlanta or Charlotte or Houston. 

 

For a change of cabin class, you are due a refund of the price difference between what you booked and what you were downgraded to if you do take the economy seat option. Of course that price difference is a really moving target since the airline had a bazillion different fare classes they can use to do the math to their favor and a fully refundable coach ticket can actually cost more than a discounted business or first class ticket. You may also ask to be moved to another flight with the correct cabin but know that this may result in a significant delay in getting you to your destination if the front cabin(s) are sold out for your scheduled travel day.

 

If your ticket saw a change in operating carrier (United mainline to United Express or even from one United Express partner to another like Express jet doing business as United Express to Mesa doing business as United Express) then DOT rules for tickets touching US soil say you have to be offered a refund of the ticket. Airlines will typically be reasonably decent in terms of allowing changes at that point, provided you get a CS rep that knows the DOT rules, in order to not have to refund the sold and paid for ticket. 

[hiccups]

27 minutes ago, sumiandkage said:

 

If your ticket saw a change in operating carrier (United mainline to United Express or even from one United Express partner to another like Express jet doing business as United Express to Mesa doing business as United Express) then DOT rules for tickets touching US soil say you have to be offered a refund of the ticket. Airlines will typically be reasonably decent in terms of allowing changes at that point, provided you get a CS rep that knows the DOT rules, in order to not have to refund the sold and paid for ticket. 

They did change the partner for the flight.  Thanks for that information--good to know for the future!

[fbgd]

Sounds as though some weird policies in effect, that said you mentioned CruiseAir so anything is fair game. 

 

I’ve had longhaul itineraries on United that included a hop to a hub, sometimes on those short hops FC was offered and sometimes it wasn’t. In cases where I’d booked with it being FC and it changed to a single class aircraft I was always able to changed back (if timing worked and I could be bothered, in my case it was either a 30min flight, sometimes an hour to the other hub) and vice versa. There was never any requirement to take FC on the connecting flight if it disappeared because of a schedule change. I guess it all depends how your ticket and fare was constructed. In my case if it went from FC to economy the flights would credit as fully flexible economy which is as expected. 

 

Over the years I’ve noticed similar things with AA, US (when they were their own thing) and DL. Lately I’ve been living in the hub city so this happens much less.

[Globaliser]

16 hours ago, hiccups said:

I called United, explained that our flight number and aircraft had changed, and in addition to not receiving the class of seats we'd paid for, that I thought that flight was under the required connection time.  I was placed back on hold, and when the agent came back she told me the minimum connection time was 75 minutes, but they weren't going to move us to the later flight.  She said if we missed our connection, they'd put us on a later flight.

 

I had a quick look at UA's published minimum connecting times at EWR. For an international-to-domestic connection that involves a terminal change from C to A (which I can see as a possibility for some BCN-EWR-CMH itineraries), it looks like the MCT is 85 minutes. For C to C connection (which is a possibility for other BCN-EWR-CMH itineraries), it looks like it's 70 minutes.

 

So I'm not quite sure where that "75 minutes" number came from. It's possible that you were being fed a line to get you off that particular pressure point. But without knowing anything more about the exact itinerary that you had, it's difficult to say anything more concrete about your particular situation.

 

16 hours ago, hiccups said:

So, questions for experienced flyers.  If you book a ticket that doesn't specifically indicate mixed cabins, is the airline required to keep you in the category of ticket you purchased, or does that depend on your ticket's fine print?  Is the fact that we bought through Choice Air (and therefore I assume a ticket with a lot of restrictions) why we weren't notified?  Or was it because even though our flight number and aircraft changed, the time of the departure didn't change, it's considered the same flight?

I learned about minimum connection times on this board.  Why does it seem that often it's ignored by the airlines?  If someone misses a connection, is the airline always going to get them get on a later flight?

 

It will always depend on the fine print of the contract, and here it's complicated by the interpolation of Choice Air which may have additional T&Cs. So it's possible that you could be required to take a particular connecting flight even if that doesn't have the cabin that your fare entitles you to.

 

However, what I'd normally expect is that if you've paid a business class fare, you're entitled to pick flights that offer you the cabin that you've paid for, so long as there are available flights with that cabin within the timescales that you're permitted to fly in. That could mean, for example, that you could decline the economy-only flight with a 120-minute connection if there is a flight with business class with a 180-minute connection. But if the first flight with business class after the 120-minute connection means a 5-hour connection, and your fare allows connections only up to 4 hours long, you could find that you have to take the 120-minute connection.

 

Whether an airline notifies you of an aircraft change, a seat change or whatever often seems to be in the lap of the gods. So personally, I wouldn't automatically attribute that to any particular thing. Stuff happens.

 

As for the MCT, it is not ignored. You can't book a connection that's under the MCT - the computers simply won't allow it. The airline has a real reason not to book you an illegal connection, because at anything under MCT there are increasingly significant risks that you will misconnect, and that costs the airline money. Imposing an MCT that's too long also costs money, because it makes that airline unattractive compared to competing airlines' faster itineraries. So the MCT is usually set at a point that balances the competing considerations, and booking systems are set up to apply it strictly.

 

However, if you have an existing booking and the timing of one of the flights is changed so that the connection is now illegal, that won't necessarily get picked up straight away. I think that many (perhaps most?) airlines now have systems that sweep bookings later to check whether MCT is now breached, and that then trigger a system for re-booking. But I suspect that airlines are reluctant to re-book immediately there is a schedule change causing an illegal connection, because that can often mean that a second re-booking has to be done when the other flight's schedule is changed, especially if this is all being done during one of the regular schedule change seasons.

 

If, on the day, you do miss your connection, then as long as you are truly connecting (you're doing both flights on one ticket) the airline has to re-accommodate you as a matter of contractual obligation. If it's a busy travel period, then it's possible that it might not be on the next flight. But it will happen.

[travelplus]

I will say that I would much rather book directly with the airline.  My Grandfather using the last of his miles as he stopped flying booked me from Barcelona-SFO via  Frankfurt, Toronto and Chicago.  I was able to change it to Lufthansa from  Barcelona-Munich-Vancouver SFO arriving 2.5 hours earlier and as a Domestic Arrival after clearing US Customs in SFO. The mileage cost was the same.

I saw that I would barely have enough time in Chicago to make my SFO flight and UA changed me from Air Canada Rouge to Lufthansa. It worked out very well.

 

CruiseAir is a travel agent and they must do everything for you with regards to your flight just like if you book your cruise with a travel agent only the travel agent can speak with Royal to make any changes or cancellations .

Edited May 7, 2019 by travelplus

[hiccups]

11 hours ago, travelplus said:

I will say that I would much rather book directly with the airline.  My Grandfather using the last of his miles as he stopped flying booked me from Barcelona-SFO via  Frankfurt, Toronto and Chicago.  I was able to change it to Lufthansa from  Barcelona-Munich-Vancouver SFO arriving 2.5 hours earlier and as a Domestic Arrival after clearing US Customs in SFO. The mileage cost was the same.

I saw that I would barely have enough time in Chicago to make my SFO flight and UA changed me from Air Canada Rouge to Lufthansa. It worked out very well.

 

CruiseAir is a travel agent and they must do everything for you with regards to your flight just like if you book your cruise with a travel agent only the travel agent can speak with Royal to make any changes or cancellations .

Because we don't have FF miles, we've found for international flights we can't beat the Choice Air pricing.  The same flights on United were literally twice as much as we paid through Choice Air.  On domestic flights we've never seen any savings, and so book directly with the airlines.

I expected the United agent might tell me I had to go through Choice Air, but I'm pleased she didn't.

[hiccups]

Just checked our flights, and they have AGAIN changed our last leg to another flight without business class, and stuck us in economy!  The partner for the flight has also changed.  I'll research flights and call Choice Air tomorrow.

ETA:  The flight we were booked on was changed from a 4:40 PM departure to 6:15 PM, so they moved us to another flight that departs at 4:59 PM (the one that doesn't have business class).  I can't believe they didn't even notify us or give us the option to keep our flight.

Edited May 23, 2019 by hiccups
additional information

[waterbug123]

10 hours ago, hiccups said:

Just checked our flights, and they have AGAIN changed our last leg to another flight without business class, and stuck us in economy! 

 

You are referring to the EWR-CMH flight, correct?  That's a short hop domestic flight and highly improbable that your original flight was actually business class, as aircraft flying a route like that would generally not have a business class configuration.  In fact, it's likely that some (maybe most?) flights on that route are small commuter jets that may not even be configured for domestic first class. 

[hiccups]

24 minutes ago, waterbug123 said:

 

You are referring to the EWR-CMH flight, correct?  That's a short hop domestic flight and highly improbable that your original flight was actually business class, as aircraft flying a route like that would generally not have a business class configuration.  In fact, it's likely that some (maybe most?) flights on that route are small commuter jets that may not even be configured for domestic first class. 

That is the flight I'm referring to.  Our flight was on an Embraer 175, which according to the seat maps, does have first class.  Maybe not "true" first class seats, but United sells a first class ticket for that flight.  The flight they changed us to is an Embraer RJ145.   I'm just really annoyed to have not even been notified.  And based on the information here that I verified on the DOT site, it seems they are supposed to offer us a refund.

 

[terry&mike]

1 hour ago, hiccups said:

That is the flight I'm referring to.  Our flight was on an Embraer 175, which according to the seat maps, does have first class.  Maybe not "true" first class seats, but United sells a first class ticket for that flight.  The flight they changed us to is an Embraer RJ145.   I'm just really annoyed to have not even been notified.  And based on the information here that I verified on the DOT site, it seems they are supposed to offer us a refund.

 

There is generally a disclaimer on cruise air (Choice, EZ, etc) saying that the international legs of your itinerary will be in Business Class and that the domestic legs may be in a different class.

[hiccups]

1 hour ago, terry&mike said:

There is generally a disclaimer on cruise air (Choice, EZ, etc) saying that the international legs of your itinerary will be in Business Class and that the domestic legs may be in a different class.

In the past, it's always been noted at time of booking if we had mixed cabin tickets.  This time, Choice Air had us down at business/first on all flights.

Regardless of what seats we end up with, I find it strange that United sent us a change in flight email when the departure of one of our original flights changed by five minutes, yet now twice they have put us on entirely different flights and we received no notification from Choice Air or United.

Edited May 23, 2019 by hiccups

[alidor]

Welcome to the world of the airlines....

[Globaliser]

18 hours ago, hiccups said:

ETA:  The flight we were booked on was changed from a 4:40 PM departure to 6:15 PM, so they moved us to another flight that departs at 4:59 PM (the one that doesn't have business class).  I can't believe they didn't even notify us or give us the option to keep our flight.

 

I'm guessing that this is for 18 or 19 October 2019?

 

If it's 18 October, then "keeping your flight" wouldn't have done any good because the 1815 EWR-CMH flight is a single cabin flight too. You'd have to wait until the 2115 EWR-CMH flight to get first/business class.

 

If it's 19 October, then the 1815 flight does have first/business class. So like last time, you could ask to be moved back to this flight.

 

I expect that the robotics are programmed to think in the way that many passengers think: faced with a choice between a 3:10 connection and a 4:25 connection, they'd take the earlier one even if it meant forgoing first/business class. The scheduled duration of the short flight is less than 2 hours, anyway. But I agree that it shouldn't be such a struggle to get back what you'd prefer if it isn't what the robotics have done.

 

If I've got the flight date correct, then expect a good chance of this happening again before travel.

[hiccups]

We were able to be placed back on our flight with business class.  At first Choice Air said United told them we weren't eligible for that flight, but eventually they relented and put us back on it.  While that flight departs later, with the Polaris lounge at EWR, we weren't too worried about killing the extra time.

 

Should they change us again, I think I will look into switching our flights entirely--yesterday they offered us the option of a BCN-IAD-CMH route that had a shorter travel time, but I wanted to research the aircraft first because I didn't think all of United's planes had been updated to Polaris class yet.  I have very little knowledge of business class travel and never know when I might choose the wrong option.  Thank goodness for forums like this one and Flyer Talk, and sites like The Points Guy and SeatGuru.

Choice Air also offered us the option to cancel our tickets for a full refund and book directly with United (this was when United was telling them we weren't able to get on the later flight due to purchasing our tickets through Choice Air).  I told them that because booking through United was more than double the cost, we weren't going to do that.

[waterbug123]

1 hour ago, hiccups said:

We were able to be placed back on our flight with business class.... While that flight departs later, with the Polaris lounge at EWR, we weren't too worried about killing the extra time.

 

 

 

Are you still talking about the EWR-CMH leg?  If so, you are NOT in business class; it doesn't exist on that flight.  At best, you have domestic first class which is VERY different from business class.  While technically a refund should have been offered when you were downgraded to coach for that leg on the other flight, I wouldn't have gotten too upset about it, given the short length of the flight. 

[hiccups]

1 hour ago, waterbug123 said:

 

Are you still talking about the EWR-CMH leg?  If so, you are NOT in business class; it doesn't exist on that flight.  At best, you have domestic first class which is VERY different from business class.  While technically a refund should have been offered when you were downgraded to coach for that leg on the other flight, I wouldn't have gotten too upset about it, given the short length of the flight. 

Yes, I understand that--I said that in my reply to your first post.  My point is we are now back on a flight that has a seat category other than coach/economy.  I get the difference between business and first class, but really, for this thread, it's not that big a deal.