rkkwan: If you see this post I want to thank you and I hope you can help with this. Many months ago you suggested I tried TA for tickets. It just didn't work out quite the way I wanted. I am willing to shell out over $3,640 for 2 tickets from BA on-line from their web-site, but it won't sell me the tickets claiming it is "Insufficient Connection" time between flights. But there is 2:35 hours for connection assume it is on-time. I hope you have the answer.

Here is the itinerary: Leave SFO (Wed. June 7) flight BA0284 at 16:50 arrive LHR 11:00 (next day). Here's the catch, I want to take BA6581 operated by British Mediterranean (BMED) under British Airways at 14:35 for Yerevan. When I tried to purchase the tickets, that was when the "Insufficient Connection time between flights" came up and won't allow me to go any further.

I rather not spend a night in London to catch the next day flight to Yerevan. I prefer BA because it has more flights to Yerevan that fits my schedule. I want to just buy one ticket for both legs for the reason that if I miss the connection, at least BA has the next day (Fri. 6/9) flight. Yerevan is not a popular city that many airlines have daily flights! The return flight is no problem. Either June 19 or 21 (no flight on Tues.) from Yerevan to London. We plan to spend 8 days in the UK. before flying back to SFO on June 28/29.

How do I by-pass this and buy the tickets on-line? Worst comes to worst, I can always go back to the TA. Any suggestions from any of you?

I have no problem going all the way till the payment page. The connection time is definitely sufficient. You may want to just try again, or there may be a glitch in their software or something.

Or try using a 3rd party site like Orbitz.

BTW, I'm no expert on BA or its website. In fact, I've never flown on BA. Maybe AAFF or others will know their website better.

If this answer is teaching my grandmother to suck eggs. forgive me.

But when I tried the same thing, the site suggested a connection with an 85 min connection time as the default. Starting from SFO, you have to change terminals and 85 mins would indeed be tricky. Are you sure you've selected the earlier departure from SFO?

Thank you rkkwan. I did tried Orbitz, it gave me exact schedule. I don't know if I attempt to make payment and it will do the same as "insufficient connection time"! I rather give my business to my travel agent or book direct from the airline site.

To Cotswold: There are 2 flights from SFO to LHR. One is at 16:50 (BA0284), which I chose and arrives at 11:00 next day. The other is at 18:55 (BA0286) and arrives at 13:00. I know there is no way for me to make the connection at 14:35 if I take the BA0286 flight which arrives at Terminal 1. I believe the connection is at Terminal 4. I thought 3+ hours should be plenty of time to change terminal.

Just to add that BA allows me to book the later flight with the 1h35m connection time

Yeah, I know we all see both connections. But only the OP goes as far to the actual payment page.

And nothing wrong with taking the early flight. LHR-EVN is less than daily, so it's smart to do the longer connection even if a 85-minute one is allowed.

My suggestion would be to go to their website and proceed to the place where you get the message, then call their customer service and ask them to make it work.

I've done this a couple of times with another airline and, assuming you can get to a capable agent, they have always been happy to resolve my problem.

My airline only gives 50% FF miles for phone bookings, but they give 100% FF miles for on-line bookings, and they have always given me the 100% FF miles when I start the booking process on line, but need a phone call to finish it. Nor do they charge me the fee for a phone booking.

I took clevelandbrown's advice and called BA (1-800-247-9247). The TA told me to call Tech Support (1-800-403-0882). The lady gave me some instruction what to do. I started to book on-line all over to the point that I gave out the CC #, names, phone #, add. email, emergency contact etc., and finally I had to go back to correct a few things. My final click came up short. Unable to process and I needed to contact BA. Called again and they connected me to the tech support and I got the same lady at the other end who was very sympathetic. Finally this lady helped me booked the 2 tickets that I need, unfortunately I took her advice to obtain seats on-line with my confirmation #. No seats are avilable. I have to wait till 24 hours before flight to obtain seats with the exception of Yerevan to London flight. The whole process took almost 2 hours on the phone. Admitedly, the lady from the tech support was very helpful. She did all the booking. At this point I don't know how much it will show up on my CC!

Tracking flight BA0284 the past week, on the average it was more than 30 minutes late leaving the gate. If I take flight BA0286, I can assure you that I will miss the connection. Assume it is on time, 85 minutes is not enough to go from T1 to T4.

Any advice how to obtain seats at this point? I already called BA, and they are not much help.

Just out of curiosity, how are you able to track that flight's history? I'm not having much luck on flightaware.com. I might be taking that same BA flight from SFO to LHR later this year.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW284.

Try the above. When I previewed the first, it didn't work, so go to the second one. It may work. It gives you the past week flight record. Or use the web-site that you already have, go to the left column, type in the airline, in this case (British Airways), below, type in your flight # (0284). It doesn't always work with all airlines and flights. I wasn't able to track the flight to Armenia.

Looking at past records, this flight is usually on-time.

Flightaware.com - which is one of my favorite sites - list take-off and landing times. [Landing times not available for London or other foreign airports.] Look at BA284 since the time change, it has not taken off later than 5:50pm, or one hour after its 4:50 departure. Usually it's in the air within half an hour.

For example, for yesterday's flight (4/14), it took off at 5:16, 26 minutes after scheduled departure, and fairly representative of this flight. If you look at arrival data for 284 of the same flight (4/15) on britishairways.com, you will find that it arrives 10:45am, or 15 minutes early.

So, even if it takes off about an hour after departure, it can still arrive at gate at LHR only 15-20 minutes late, which is basically nothing.

Anyways, for those who've booked their flight, stop worrying. But I also agree with teatravel to book the earlier flight. That's because there's only one flight a day or less to EVN. The consequence of missing the connection is much worse than for those who're connecting to most popular Western European cities, where BA can put on you on the next flight a few hours later.

Thank you, that link worked.

Those delays don't exactly inspire confidence, do they? I hope you're able to receive an answer to your question.

I just read rkkwan's post. Good point - even if there's a delay taking off, they make up for it in the air and arrive at LHR fairly close to the scheduled time.

I've flown many times with no advance seat assignment, but my wife and I have always ended up seated together (except once where they stuck her in business class) and have never been bumpted from a flight.

I've no familiarity with BA, but among full service carriers, I think it is pretty standard practice to cut off assigning seats on-line when the flight reaches near capacity (90%, just to make up a figure). That doesn't mean no seats are available, it just means that control of those seats is given to the gate agent.

When I get into this situation with my favorite airline, I go to their website almost daily and try to change my seat assignments (hoping that some people who had bought or held tickets have cancelled). If this doesn't work, I sign in on-line at the very earliest opportunity and try to change my seat assignments (check with BA to find out what the earliest opportunity is). It is worth doing this, as sometimes I have found that some of the better seats have suddenly become available.

If that doesn't work, arrive early at the airport so you can be at the head of the line when the gate agent arrives, and you will be first in line for whatever seats are available. At that time, also volunteer for an operational upgrade; they are rare, but worth asking for. Sometimes a flight will be overbooked in tourist, but have first class seats unsold, and they will upgrade people from tourist to first class to avoid having to bump people from tourist. I have to admit that this is very rare; it has never yet happened for me, but I keep volunteering and hoping.