FF Mile Experts - How often due flights change if I don't initially get flights that I like?
 

We want to fly from CLT to Geneva on April 26 and from Venice to CLT on May 9. The flight to Geneva isn't the problem; its the Venice return flight. Basically right now the problem is that the flight has to layover in London and the flight leaves from London at 9:40 am but there are no flights from Venice that arrive in London with enough time to make the connection. We are going to be forced to stay the night in London, not getting into London Gatwick at 6:05 pm. This seems like a complete waste of a day to me; not only do we loose a better portion of a vacation day but by the time we get to a hotel in London all we have time for is dinner. I tried reversing the trip but its the same thing; the flight from Geneva leaves too late to make the London connection. Milan was also an option that didn't work out.

We have the ticket on hold but I'm wondering how often they change. I know that nobody is a mind reader and that its impossible to probably answer this with 100% certainty, but I'm hoping someone has experiences where they call back often and end up with a better flight. I'm just worried that if we wait too long we will end up with a terrible flight into Geneva as well.

At this point I'm not considering calling and asking about dropping Venice and flying out of Paris, as my hope is that the flights from Paris go directly into the US before laying over, bypassing London alltogether. I would hate to miss out on Venice, as I have yet to visit, although we did love Paris (we visited only 1 time) and wouldn't have any problems returning. Our itinerary, as it stands, includes Vevey, BO, Lake Como and Venice.

Thanks for any advice you are willing to part with!

Tracy

For a 9:40am London departure, there are really few alternatives to overnight in London. No way around it. They are not going to move that flight much later, and it's unlikely they'll add a much earlier flight out of Venice.

Do Paris or whatever.

Tracy, Have you waitlisted yourself on the flights you want? Last year about 10 weeks before we went to Nice we got our return flight changed to a better connection. This year we're going back to Greece and we had horrible flights going over, ATL-FRA-CDG-ATH and two days ago I got it changed to a direct flight (we leave next week). We're still waitlisted for a change to our return flight. I usually take which ever flight I can get to guarantee myself something and then I waitlist for what I want and then keep calling to check the partner airlines since I can't waitlist on the them. Good Luck getting what you want I know how frustrating it can be.

What the OP asks is a little different. They don't even have a flight to waitlist on. They're hoping they'll change the schedule or add a flight that will work for them.

Did you check any partner airlines to see if they may have a leg that you can build into the Venice/US part of the trip?

I know when I start reading the rules of flying OUT of London, I get a headache. If for that reason alone, I would consider changing it.

Good Luck.

I also wanted to say that since they are ff tickets, there probably isn't any cost connected with the change even if you don't care if it costs you.

I also don't know with whom you are ticketing, but our miles are with US Airways and there was a limit to the wait time before they forced us to ticket. They used to be more lenient I seem to remember but lately it is three days and only a couple of hold times.

Seasonal service is a possibility for added schedules but who knows how to find out about that.

Personally, I would do the Paris stop when you are forced to ticket because you really like that better than London and watch for an announcement of a schedule change and jump on it. If it never occurs, at least you have the least objectionable routing.

Thank you all for your help. Unfortunately it looks as though AA doesn't have direct flights into either Geneva or Venice, so we would be flying BA for that portion of our trip. I'm hoping that Paris may have a better shot because AA does have direct flights into Paris from the US. I'll probably call sometime this weekend. We've been to London several times, and had to stay the night in London both going to and from Croatia last year and it was a hassle. I certainly don't care for the idea of having to do it again.

We checked a few weeks ago, just to see how the process works (we are inexperienced with FF miles) and when we went over our itinerary AA originally gave us details for a flight from Venice that had a layover in Madrid, on Iberia. That was a much better flight, but we weren't prepared to book yet and now it looks like we missed out.

Tracy

My experience is with United FF, and I have had luck in changing an itinerary by persistence. Keep calling them. Flights change all the time, because other people change their plans. I assume you're calling, not just internetting? Because I know United's partner flights don't show on their website, and it's much more effective to call. The reps can sometimes work it out for you.
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