lowcountrycarol

Thought this might be something that other travelers would like to know about email tickets. These tickets were for travel Dec. 21 but purchased 8 months earlier

Husband and I were about to take off for a flight out of Savannah to Newark and then on to Lisbon. We have been doing this mega times as we have a second home in the south of Portugal. I nagged him into checking on the departure flight as they have often been delayed getting up to Newark due to "winds" as the airlines always puts it.

Our flight number didn't match with our itinnerary by the voice message system. He finally got a real person on the phone (meanwhile our driver appeared and was waiting to take us to the airport) The Continental agent was at first
very short with my husband then finally beccame more helpful. Turns our that Continental had cancelled our outgoing flight and altogether cancelled our return flight from Lisbon months earlier. We had just gotten flight confirmation info emailed to us (unsolicited by us) from Continental 11 days earlier. Since we got the email with all the flights we were expecting to be taking, we never thought it necessary to confirm with a Continental rep by phone. Will never do that again. Finally one and a half hours later we were rebooked and very upset with Continental over the whole thing.

FainaAgain

I check my Continental itinerary every week! So far the flight time was changed twice!

I don't think it's this particular airline, if you read the airline board's posts, happens all the time!

rkkwan

I also check all itineraries at least once a week; sometimes even more often. You just have to understand that itineraries, aircraft types, flight numbers all change frequently; and the airlines in general do not contact you. Regardless of what airline you're taking.

Syl

My daughter's email from the airline stated that she fly from Toronto to Montreal & her connection would be early the next morning to the Carribean. So she checked into the Montreal Airport Hilton, awoke at 4:30 a.m. only to be told at the wicket that her flight will be leaving from Toronto not Montreal. Although she was flown immediately back to Toronto to catch the flight, she insisted & was moved to a first class seat down south. A f/u letter will also ask for reimbursement of hotel & other expenses as a result. The moral of the story.... please confirm prior to flying.

Travelnut

I always book with the airline, rather than a consolidator or booking engine.. I pull up my itinerary on the website and review the flight #s and times... that information should be accurate, yes?

rkkwan

Information is correct, as of now. But if you're booking a ticket for months away, you just have to check back once in a while.

The schedule should be pretty much set a few weeks before departure; and any change will be very minor - like 15-30 minutes change in departure time.

Seamus

There is always the possibility of a change in schedules or routing, so reconfirming a few days in advance is always a good idea. On the Continental home page you can request email notification of changes - it's in the yellow box toward the bottom where you check fligth status. If you request they will send you an email notfying you of changes affecting your itinerary. I suppose one could perhaps argue that airlines ought to notify everyone anyway, but this is a nice feature that I have used and found helpful.

Sher

Hi Carol. We book tickets mostly with US Airways directly because of where we live and we try to get miles accumulated with one airline because we are leisure travelers and do not get any points for business travel so it takes us a while.

Once in a while we book with Orbitz. And I have found they are more consistent with notifying us about change in our flight times than US Airways. But I am fairly compulsive and always reconfirm.

On another note. There has been more interest in Portugal lately as a travel destination from posters here. It would be nice if you could take the time to maybe add to the postings. I am sure that you could give us a good perspective as someone who visits Portugal regularly, especially as one with a second home there.

Just a request from an interested Portugal traveler. Thanks

Sherry

ira

Hi L,

Good point.

When I make a booking I check the flights weekly until the last week, when I check daily.

rkkwan

Yeah, Orbitz does seem to do a good job in notifying their customers on changes. I guess that's why some people should pay the $10 to book through them. They do provide some service. And you can pick seats directly on their site without going to the airline's.

eliztrav

When I book weeks or months in advance, I have yet NOT to experience a change. Sometimes, the change is only a few minutes, but there have been a few times when the change was major. Moral is, ALWAYS keep an eye on your flights....until you get on the flight, those guys can screw you over. Out of all the times my flights were altered, only 2 or 3 times was I notified, by phone or e-mail.

Mimar

My son had the opposite experience with Orbitz last Christmas. His return flight was cancelled. No warning from Orbitz or the airline.

WillTravel

Yikes, Mimar. How did he get home? At what cost?

Jolie

I had a strange experience where my airline bumped me from my scheduled flight home and re-booked me on a flight the next day. However, because I was travelling at the time, I didn't check my e-mail and so was unaware that I had been put on the next day's flight.

I went to the airport as originally scheduled, and was given my boarding pass and was allowed on the flight. When I get home, I find an e-mail waiting for me saying that I was re-booked on the next day's flight. I called the airline out of curiosity and was told that I should have been on the second flight, not the original.

So does that mean I have to check my e-mails while on vacation now? I guess I should check at least the day before returning home.

P_M

This thread prompted me to check my reservation for my trip in April. I have just learned that my last flight segment coming home will leave an hour before I expected. So instead of having a 2.5 hour layover at ORD, I will have 1.5 hours. It's been about 3 weeks since I looked at this reservation, so this change is fairly recent. I'll keep checking between now and April in case it changes again. Thanks everyone!!

Christina

I would never ever trust solely to a request for email information from an airline as to last minute accuracy regarding flights. Even if I requested them to do that, I would still check the website myself.

Computer errors and email glitches happen all the time to simply assume you would get an accurate email from an airline on flight changes. These are not always the airline's fault, either, but could even be your own computer or email service. I know recently I have been having trouble with delayed emails up to 3 days from a certain IP address of a friend that my ISP has just decided to sporadically block or limit transmissions from. It is a university, and this is not a spam issue, but they are delaying her emails to me. They do not notify users of these kinds of rules, so you would never know what you might be missing.

MFNYC

ALways double check on the airline website every so often. EVen if you book thru expedia or orbitz, they give you a confirmation number which you can enter on the airline website.

ALso check the day of prior to leaving for the airport. Things can change at the last moment. We found uot our flight (frmo Tucson to SLC) was cancelled as we were driving to the airport. Earlier in the day it was 'on time'. Needless to say we turned around, had lunch and went to a movie to kill time while waiting for our reassigned flight 5 hrs later.

prr761

I purchased open-jaw tickets from British Air in Oct, for a departure from US in mid March. They have already sent 2 e-mails with a time change for the return flight (end of April). I guess I'd better keep my eye on them during my time away...I will not be accessing e-mail. So far, the changes haven't been problematic-just an hour more layover at Heathrow.