We have flights scheduled for March on Northwest. Today we received an email that there was a schedule change.

I'll say!

The original flights departed at 12:30 pm.

The new flights now depart at 5 am.

Do we have any options? Any 'legal' ways to get this changed back to an afternoon flight without incurring fees? We chose these flight options in part due to the departure times.

Thanks!

Your choices in general are:

1. Accept the change
2. Get another NW flight, with no change fee required
3. Get full refund and book elsewhere

Do your homework first about other NW flights and also fares/schedules of other airlines before calling.

Whenever I've had a nasty schedule change like that, I've usually been successful getting the airline to change me back to a better flight time.

Not 100% of the time but almost. I phone and explain I live such and such distance from the airport and can't make the earlier flight w/o staying overnight -- or whatever legitimate reason applies to the specific situation. The agent can usually accommodate you.

I have had a couple of schedule changes with United this year, and in each case, the result I got after I phoned customer support resulted in a somewhat or much better itinerary than I had before the change.

As suggested, look up your ideal flight choices for that day. Don't hesitate to ask for a more expensive routing than you had originally.

In the past it has seemed like an insane computer makes these changes. When faced with such a problem often if I check website I find a perfectly reasonable itinerary and have had no problem getting my flights changed to that with a phone call (and no fee).

Great! Thanks for the info. I'll let you know how it goes.