Craig

It pays to check your itinerary regularly especially if you book really early like we do to get the available flights. This year it is worse than ever as fuel costs have caused many long distance flights to be canceled or cut back. The latest casualty is our flight from Toronto to Beijing (connecting from Hartford, CT and continuing on to Bangkok) - that flight has been changed to depart before our Hartford flight to Toronto arrives. In addition, it will now stop in Vancouver before continuing on to Beijing. So now we are leaving the night before and staying over in Toronto in order to catch the new 8 AM departure. We considered all of the other options and went over them with a US-based(!) agent at United while simultaneously checking all available options on-line. There was a 6 am departure available on United via Chicago and Vancouver but with tight connections - as United treats those booking with ff miles like dirt and the connections were tight, we opted for the overnight in Toronto instead.

The bottom line is that you must keep checking as you may or may not be notified. We still have a long-haul flight back on ANA (NRT-IAD) that I will have to continue to monitor lest it have a similar fate.

simpsonc510

Craig, not only is this true (monitoring your seats) for FF miles, but also on paid tickets. I had booked my "favorite" economy+ seats a couple of months ago, and saw them being given away to someone else. You have to watch your seat assignments like a hawk. They DO change them. Their computers will do a random seat reassignment. If you had a window, you will get another window. If you had an aisle, you will get another aisle.

I had the bulkhead window right behind business class. I have just managed to get that seat back, just days ago, after it had been given to someone else, and I then moved myself to exit row seating in economy. When I saw 17A (on a 777)available again, I grabbed it!!!!!

I'm waiting at the Thai Star Alliance Gold Lounge right now, to board that flight. I asked about a buy-up to business class for today but they said business class is over sold!!! Should be a full flight, I guess.

Carol

Nywoman

It also pays to check your presumed usage of FF miles. I was so sure that I had booked a RTW ticket for my upcoming trip. When I called Delta to see if I could add another leg to the ticket, I was informed that my ticket was a regular round trip.

The good news I don't have to go Siem Reap - Paris- New York with a few stops in between in one fell swoop. The best news, I got credited for the extra miles used when I canceled that leg.

Apparently it had originally been put in as a RTW ticket but ticketed as a regular flight. I would never have known if I hadn't called.

It so goes aginst my grain to doublecheck but in today's world we have to. Hope these are not going to be my famous last words.

Kathie

It's a good reminder, Craig. I've been keeping close tabs on my October/November flights. They changed one of the planes from a 777 to a 747. So far, my seats are ok. But I've had previous experiences with losing seats that had been prebooked 330 days in advance.

Kristina

Yep. FF tickets or not, check those flights! Seats get changed as do the type of aircraft. Flights get canceled. Don't count of them to notify you of anything!

filmwill

Good advice for all to heed.

I monitored our Thai Air award tix from LAX to BKK this December like a hawk (we booked them all the way back in February.) Glad I did, since they changed the departure time by nearly 12 hours in both directions and they halved the number of biz class seats with a change of aircraft. Luckily, I found out almost immediately about the change and was able to reconfirm (United had not re-issued the tickets, so we could've been denied boarding) and reissue the tickets with no issues.

Paulo59

Yes, I strongly encourage anyone traveling anywhere this year to keep checking the itinerary whether they paid for the ticker or used miles. I have booked 4 United trips this year and every one of them has been completely re-arranged by them changing the time and/or the stopovers. I had booked a non-stop form LA to HKG 9 months in advance only to have them cancel the non-stop and reroute me through SF. And they keep changing the times and flight #'s on all of my flights. So if you were planning a transfer to another airline you could be in trouble. Of course they offer to cancel your ticket altogether but will not promise to match the seats or time or anything else about the itinerary. Crazy times.

pat

My AA ff ticket flights have all changed too. Most don`t matter but one flight was delayed, and now I can`t make the Mexicana connection, so had to re arrange that too.