eastave

We are going to Germany the end of August. I was online looking to change my seats around and I noticed a red flag that said schedule change. They did not contact me via email about this as they have in the past. So I look down and see that the last flight of the day (in the evening) from Detroit to our home town must have been cancelled and they now have us on the mid afternoon flight. The problem is that the flight leaves Detroit several hours before we arrive! I of course did not click on the confirm schedule change button they have. But how the heck would they let this one through?

I haven't called because I want to figure out what all our options are first. I am very annoyed because it looks like in order to get home on NW in one day we need to leave Munich very early in the morning. We just did that on a return from Istanbul and it killed us starting the day wiped out (we are traveling with a 3 year-old). Ugh.

travelgourmet

This stuff happens. Do you have exact cities and dates for the return? It will help us offer advice on alternate options.

Seamus

In case you are not aware, when a schedule change like that is imposed you have the option of a refund. Of course you would need to find an alternate carrier.
You can also look at different routing, or spend a night at the Detroit airport.

eastave

There aren't many options where we are (London, ON). It is either NW or Aircanada. We can always drive to Detroit (2.5 hours) or Toronto (2-2.5 hours), but it sucks doing that at the end of a transatlantic trip.

The Aircanada options are more expensive, but they have a direct flight from Munich that is appealing, although we have had some miserable experiences on Aircanada.

The interesting thing is that if we do switch to the early morning NW flights it is worth it to take the refund and buy again since the price is now lower. I am not sure if the rate dropped, or is just lower for these flights, or if the exchange rate is working in our favor.

The thing that is so weird is don't they have some sort of computerized system that won't let you be booked on overlapping flights? I know in the past they haven't let me book flights with too short of a layover. Why they are moving us to flights with a negative layover is mysterious.

dfr4848

LH flies nonstop from both Detroit and Toronto to FRA. Our experiences with them have been very good. And they have a sale going on right now. [I know 2.5 hr drive isn't great, but I'd sure consider it given your options].

That negative layover isn't as uncommon as you think when segments of a schedule are changed. The computer gremlins are very good at that.

dfr4848

Just to add to previous comment. When a change like this is made, you can cancel with no penalty and get full refund. If you check other options, like the LH flights, you may find alternatives cheaper and the difference might well worth that 2.5 hr drive.

eastave

Thank you all for your advice. It helped knowing that I could count on a full refund. We decided to just cancel the original ticket and drive to Detroit. We are still on NW, but the whole change without the last leg and price changes since means we saved $1200. In the end it is probably better than the original deal, but what a pain. I spent at least an hour on the stupid website and another hour on the phone (mostly on hold).

Golfergal

This week I found a similar thing happened to us with NW. DH and I are on separate PRNs, which has been a nightmare, but no choice as he's on FF ticket and I'm paid as I want the miles for status.

No notice on either flight. NW cancelled the 9pm flight from DTW to BDL and put me on the earlier flight. It leaves DTW at 5:20 PM and my flight from Rome arrives at 5:20, so that would not work! For DH, they changed his flight completely and put him on a Delta flight through JFK. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased at the lack of notice or the careless change. I was also not thrilled to be on the phone for 3 hours to get it fixed.

eastave

Golfergal - yes the time it takes having to deal with it is really annoying. I had them cancel another flight on me. This time it was from Detroit to Fort Myers in October. We had a mid-day drict flight. They put us on a 7:15am flight with a connection in LGA! The craziest thing is that there was an 8:45am direct flight that would get us there earlier of course. When I called, the woman I spoke to was baffled by that switch and said she could put us on one of the direct flights, but I was annoyed enough to just cancel the whole thing.

Maybe we have just been unlucky, but I am getting tired of booking trips and having my well thought out plans thrown out the window. I wonder if they are in more flux with the merger with Delta? I am kind of annoyed that this is happening when we just made elite status...