Ok, don't know if anyone here has any brilliant idea to solve this problem but, here goes. My friend and I are going to Bequia from KC at the end of April and were scheduled to land in SJ at 2:10 then take a 3:30 Liat flight to St. Vincent to make the last feryy at 7 pm. Now AA has changed the time to land in SJ to 2:55 so there's no way to make that Liat flight. Our minds are racing! We are using our miles on AA so we do want to stay w/ them. The only thing AA suggested was to leave the day before and overnight in Chicago and leave the next day on our scheduled Liat flight. Any suggestions are welcome!

Well, you are runnig up against the classic dilemma when taking connecting flights with non-code share airlines using two seperate tickets. Unfortunately for you, it is not AA's problem as they are getting you to your "AA" destination (in this case SJU - I assume that's what you mean by "SJ&quot within 45 minutes of your original scheduled arrival time - a reasonable time difference.

Since you want to stay on AA you are pretty much locked into their schedule. You might want to see if AA can route you to Barbados as it should be fairly easy to get to Bequia from there. This probably will require you to change planes in Miami and may mean an overnight stop which I gather is something you don't want to do.

Another alternative would be to charter a plane from SJU but this would be very expensive since you are hoping to use FF miles I gather it might be out of your "budget".

Of course there's always a possibility that the Liat flight will be delayed (after all many people think LIAT stands for Leave Island Any Time) but you can't count on that.

I think you are going to have to do what many of us do when flying to the Grenadines, plan on overnighting somewhere along the way. Sorry if this doesn't sound very encouraging but short of changing from AA to a different carrier it may be your only alternative.

RoamsAround, Thanks so much for the reply! Those are great suggestions. We're still thinking about it. I so appreciate your input! If only AA could fly to St.Vincent, huh?!

If you really have to spend the night either going or coming (and you may), then I'd recommend doing that in either Barbados or San Juan. There are some not terribly expensive hotels close to the airports on each island, and while they would add to your cost, I don't think they'd be that much more than a hotel in Chicago. Connections to the Grenadines are generally better in Barbados, but you still might not get there in one day.

And if it matters, SVG Air has a flight from Barbados to Bequia at 4:30. Liat is not your only alternative, and you don't necessarily have to go on the ferry from St. Vincent to Bequia.

If you cannot go down one night earlier to sleep over in San Juan, you can try getting reticketed and paying the rebooking fee...I did that in 2006 when trying to use American FF miles and getting to/from Bequia. AA and LIAT have a ticketing agreement that I used on the way home because my first leg was a LIAT flight and I didn't want the possibility of a delayed flight make me miss my AA flight.

Can you try to rebook your frequent flyer miles to Barbados and then take SVGAir from Barbados to Bequia?
It's not cheap flying SVGAir, but compare its cost to buying the LIAT ticket and the ferry ticket and an extra night in a hotel in San Juan (or elsewhere)--perhaps the extra money spent would be less than all of those added up.

Hi all! Just wanted to let you all know what we decided to do since you've been so helpful with your suggestions. We're flying to Chicago the night before and spending the night there. Next morning will fly to SJ with a 2 hour layover till we fly on Liat to St.Vincent and then take the ferry. This looked like the easiest way to resolve the dilemma! I suspect if Bequia were so easy to get to we might not treasure it like we do!! Thanks again!!!!!!