Flight to Italy Canceled!
 

What a bummer! This joyous day we have planned for, almost a year, finds us with packed bags, arrangements for tours, rooms, etc. and a canceled American Airlines flight out of Chicago, direct to Rome that is not rescheduled until Sunday September 4th! Agggggg. It chops a full 3 days off our stay in Rome. Logistically it was impossible to just move everything forward as we have 3 stops. This is the first time this has ever happened to us. And oh man is it hard to get out of vacation mode once you have entered it :( Anyone else in the same boat?

This is depressing. I think AA should put you on a flight that leaves tonight or tomorrow. You might have to change plans, put a 4 day delay is not exceptable. Good luck.

yipper

Supposedly this is the first available.... We will miss the Sunday Appian Way, had to cancel guide to Vatican, will miss the nice weekend markets...We have a Scavi tour scheduled for 3pm on Monday. We are holding out hope we will be able to drag our butts off the jet (assuming arrival at 9:10am as scheduled), meet our driver, dump our bags and navigate to the Vatican to catch the Scavi tour. I can tell you we are eating only at the Real Italian family restaurants tonight, tomorrow night & Saturday night!!! And oh yeah, I'm going to drink lots of fine Italian wine until we go too! (but it isn't the same:()

This thread may be of help to you. Read down a few posts for info on your rights-

http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a...m/778003545001

Hi Luv,

Sorry to hear about your problem.

((I))

Why did they cancel your flight?
Have never heard of that before, never !!!!
What did they offer you instead?

Luv to roam, what a bummer! Seems unimaginable at the height of the season too. Please keep us posted and good luck!

Can they book you on one of their partner airlines? What about a non- direct flight or a flight into a city other than Rome. For example, you could go through JFK where they have a direct flight to Milan as well. We once missed and AA connection to Milan out of JFK, AA's fault, and they routed us through Heathrow within 8 hours. See if they can get you to the other side of the Atlantic and then route you from there on AA or one of its partner airlines - they do that, I know.

And write a letter of complaint. We did for a canceled connection from JFK to SFO and got a voucher for it.

oh my. I'm guessing this is due to all the delays and cancellations due to Hurricane Irene. we're supposed to leave next Thursday out of JFK to FCO. I'm watching that tropical storm Katia developing this week...and figuring out possible changes if our RDU to JFK afternoon flight is impacted. If we know soon enough the day before, we could drive to Baltimore and take Amtrak or catch a commuter flight to NYC from there earlier in the day. Argh!

Did you buy trip insurance with your flight? I'm going to read all the fine print says there right now...

I am so very sorry :(

Ugh! I agree with others - try to get rebooked on a partner airline. Maybe British Airways through London to Rome or Milan?

This is where the right travel insurance comes in. I never leave home (for travel!) without it!!

I would advise you not not settle for a rebooking 3 days out. That is not acceptable. For a city pair of ORD/FCO there are MANY options available.

Get on to Kayak.com and see all the flights today or tomorrow CHI-ROM. Be VERY insistent that they place you on one of those flights (not AA, any airline). It's called interlining. Just be calm, polite, confident and insistent. If you get a no, escalate to their supervisor. If they say no, hang up and call again. Sound well informed, and know all your options.

There are tons of options, such as:
BA 294/556 @ 5:10
DL 642/246 @ 2:30
AC 508/890 @ 3:50

Good luck!

Do NOT let them do this to you. Agree to go online and get a list of flights - with room available - then call AA ad say they MUST get you there sooner - here are a bunch of flights - and organize something.

Delta once did this to me - on a short business trip - and wanted me to leave AFTER the event I was going to occurred. I got on the phone and in 20 minutes )after talking to 2nd supervisor) had a flight leaving in 3 hours.

For those of you who mentioned travel insurance, where you do usually purchase this from? What does it cover?

well, I purchased travel insurance at the same time I bought my AA tickets, but usually I go to Insure my Trip.com. you should purchase trip insurance within 5 days of making your first purchase (normally that's tickets) .

The details of my policy state that If the airline offers to rebook your arrangements asap that is acceptable, but I didn't note any mention of what would be considered appropriate time-wise. I would keep pressing...that is quite a delay. Insurance would cover prepaid hotel (or an apt) reservations, hopefully the hotel/owner would let you cancel those first days w/o penalty, and if not and ins doesn't cover it, I'd ask AA for something.

I think we may be in a better position as there are a lot of flights to Rome from JFK, but after hearing
LuvToRoam's predicament, you can bet I'm going to be prepared in case Hurricane Katia threatens
east coast flights and we get that dreaded phone call from AA. You should get some coupons for future flights or even upgrades and/or extra FF points.

An update...our original flight was indeed canceled (they weren't giving us a line). It was the pilot/plane respositioning etc. We were not interested in a multi stop flight and were not able to get on a direct flight before the Sunday option. If we lived in Chicago we could probably have parked ourselves at the airport and perhaps gotten lucky but alas, we are in a suburb of Milwaukee and don't have the option. We do have trip insurance and so will have to deal with some of the other things we had to cancel for reimbursement. Not to worry, I'll get vouchers. As of now the daily flight to Rome is scheduled for today and tomorrow and went out yesterday. We must be destined to not properly see the Vatican as this is the second time something has interferred with that tour!! Hoping this next darn storm has no ill effect. Also hoping my next post is from Bella Roma!

>>We were not interested in a multi stop flight and were not able to get on a direct flight before the Sunday option.<<

You would rather miss 3 days of your vacation rather than make a connection?