Is a 10am post-cruise flight too early - MIA

[erby2283]

I am meeting up with some friends for a cruise in May in Miami.   American Airline keeps changing their return flight (for example the flight they originally booked completely disappeared off the search engine for a few weeks but then was put back - yet AA never switched them back to their original flight time).  This has now happened twice so instead of a 1:40 departure from MIA, it's now at 10am.  

 

Since their layover flight is in CLT, which is my home airport, I booked the same flight home so we could all fly together - but all our flights keep changing now.  Just frustrating trying to keep us all together on the same flight and now am worried that 10AM is too early. 

 

Is a 10am flight too early disembarking Icon? I have TSA pre-check but my friends do not - so I am more concerned about them.  If 10am is too early (and since the 11:40 flight has now "disappeared" from the search engine), we'll also have to re-adjust their connecting flight as there would be no plane to get them to CLT in time to make their connection.

 

Can they not just ask to be put back on their original flights since those are all showing up in the search engines? Thank you.

[6rugrats]

Can’t they just pull up their reservation online and change their flights?

[erby2283]

23 minutes ago, 6rugrats said:

Can’t they just pull up their reservation online and change their flights?

Actually, I was wrong.  Their original connection flight left Charlotte at 6:00 pm. Now their options are only 2:56 and 8:37. So if 10 is too early, nothing gets them into CLT in time for the 2:56 (unless the 11:40 show back up) so that leaves a really long layover if they don’t make the 2:56. 
 

Do you think 10 is too early? But, yes, I guess they can make the changes online. Thank you. 

[CruiserBruce]

10am is too early. This is discussed on the Florida Departures board. 

[GeezerCouple]

56 minutes ago, erby2283 said:

I am meeting up with some friends for a cruise in May in Miami.   American Airline keeps changing their return flight (for example the flight they originally booked completely disappeared off the search engine for a few weeks but then was put back - yet AA never switched them back to their original flight time).  This has now happened twice so instead of a 1:40 departure from MIA, it's now at 10am.  

 

I'm not quite following.

If the airline is changing flight times significantly, it should be possible to have the flights adjusted without change fees.

 

I'm not sure I would have just "waited" if my flight "dissappeared" for a few weeks (rather than a very short time, perhaps while a website was updated) without making sure there were suitable plans in place.  (What if that flight had never been "put back"?  And the new time certainly does *not* seem suitable!)

 

The longer one waits to contact the airline to make any adjustments, the less likely it might be that seats are still available on a flight at a suitable/preferred time.

Unfortunately, airlines do not always notify passengers when there are non-trivial flight time changes.

 

We've had connecting flights, both on the same airline, same ticket, where suddenly the "first flight" was re-scheduled... to arrive several hours *after* the second flight was scheduled to depart.  And yet we heard nothing from the airline; we found out by monitoring regularly.  Because it was the airline's responsibility, we were then allowed to get ticketed on a different schedule that we preferred, but one that had previously not been allowed.  This had involved award travel, so there had been no "award seats" remaining.  After the flight time switcheroo, we had our choice of any flight if there were *any* seats at all. But we had to be very pro-active. That shouldn't be necessary, but... it can be. 😠

 

GC 

[erby2283]

2 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

I'm not quite following.

If the airline is changing flight times significantly, it should be possible to have the flights adjusted without change fees.

 

I'm not sure I would have just "waited" if my flight "dissappeared" for a few weeks (rather than a very short time, perhaps while a website was updated) without making sure there were suitable plans in place.  (What if that flight had never been "put back"?  And the new time certainly does *not* seem suitable!)

 

The longer one waits to contact the airline to make any adjustments, the less likely it might be that seats are still available on a flight at a suitable/preferred time.

Unfortunately, airlines do not always notify passengers when there are non-trivial flight time changes.

 

We've had connecting flights, both on the same airline, same ticket, where suddenly the "first flight" was re-scheduled... to arrive several hours *after* the second flight was scheduled to depart.  And yet we heard nothing from the airline; we found out by monitoring regularly.  Because it was the airline's responsibility, we were then allowed to get ticketed on a different schedule that we preferred, but one that had previously not been allowed.  This had involved award travel, so there had been no "award seats" remaining.  After the flight time switcheroo, we had our choice of any flight if there were *any* seats at all. But we had to be very pro-active. That shouldn't be necessary, but... it can be. 😠

 

GC 

Thank you for your response. The first change to the 11:40 flight was fine - so they didn’t want to change it. It’s not until today I looked and saw both our 11:40 flights had been changed to the 10:00am. Guess I wanted to wait a couple days to see if that 11:40 flight popped back up but you’re right, it may be better they change the flight now. And thanks for the Florida Depatures board reminder - I didn’t think to check there so ny question was airfare related but I’ll remember that for next time. 
 

 

i do believe they booked a Basic fare so I don’t think they’re allowed free changes so they may have to call to get it rectified and switched to a better time. 

Edited February 25 by erby2283

[GeezerCouple]

48 minutes ago, erby2283 said:

Thank you for your response. The first change to the 11:40 flight was fine - so they didn’t want to change it. It’s not until today I looked and saw both our 11:40 flights had been changed to the 10:00am. Guess I wanted to wait a couple days to see if that 11:40 flight popped back up but you’re right, it may be better they change the flight now. And thanks for the Florida Depatures board reminder - I didn’t think to check there so ny question was airfare related but I’ll remember that for next time. 
 

 

i do believe they booked a Basic fare so I don’t think they’re allowed free changes so they may have to call to get it rectified and switched to a better time. 

Yes, they'd probably need to call to get a no-cost change.

However, the airlines often have a required minimum time change to get the freebie.  Whether this is enough... I don't know.  They'll find out when they call!

 

(We'd never schedule it this close anyway, so a 1 or 2 hour difference wouldn't be a problem.  Having the first flight arrive AFTER the second flight already left!??  Uh, yup, PROBLEM!!

😱

 

We want to relax at the end of a trip! 🙂 )

 

GC

[taxatty]

10:00 AM from the Miami port to MIA is too early, especially disembarking the giant Icon, and if it's a weekday. You could chance it, but I wouldn't.