Hope someone can help or offer advice. Warning: long set-up:

I had FF flights booked in and out of Brussels from Newark on Continental--my flight is using One Pass miles, my husband using his Delta miles to fly on the same Continental flight on December 25. I was looking at the seats to see how full it was and noticed we were now on a flight leaving 12/26, arriving 12/27.

Our itinerary was to be as follows:

Arrive 12/26 Brussels, hotel is booked with a non-refundable deposit of 30Euro.

Train on 12/27 to Paris, 42 Euro/pp each way
We have rented a flat in Paris and will be staying from 12/27-1/4.

1/4 Train to Brussels, stay through 1/9.

The options I was given were to fly into Paris leaving 12/25, arriving 12/26, or call Delta and try to get on the Delta flight leaving 12/25 arriving in Brussels on 12/26.

Taking the flight straight to CDG seems less fussy as it will only be 1 way on the train, though I will have to eat the 2 42 Euro train tickets + the 30 Euro non-refundable hotel deposit--this is essentially $150 lost + the flight to CDG is full and I am still waiting to see if the apt is available a day early.

The Delta flight to Brussels, keeping us with our original itinerary is problematic as it requires me to be on conference call with both Delta and Continental at the same time and hope that we can both get the flight, though the same phone call scenario is the case with switching to the CDG flight.

Sorry for the convoluted question, but any thoughts are much appreciated.

Thanks!!

also, please take into account, is the "new Delta" preferable for transatlantic flights over Continental--I normally only fly Continental at this point.

Caveat emptor - which is Latin for "thank God I bought travel insurance"

cb, is Delta flight to Brussels actually from JFK, and does that make any difference for you?

If you fly direct to CDG, there is no point in worrying about the prepaid train tickets as "lost" money, since the money is gone regardless of what you do now.

If the Paris apt. is available, the only real cost to you is any difference between the additional night at the apt. vs. the Brussels hotel +/- the non-refundable deposit.

I prefer EWR, even though JFK is closer for me--don't ask.

The hotel is more than the apt--so that would be a wash on cost. The irony is that I just bought the train tix last week, had previously wanted to drive and by waiting could not get the 27 Euro /pp each way train tix.

At this point I am mostly more curious if Delta has improved their service as that flight is far less full than the one to CDG.

We flew Delta from Florida to Rome, then Venice to Florida in Sept'07 with no problems whatsoever.

Thanks all--I am now just on an open jaw, EWR to CDG, Brussels to EWR, hotel waived the non-refundable deposit as we will be staying there Jan 4-8 still and the apt is cheaper than the hotel, so even with the train tix loss we come out ahead with less fooling around...

Anyone know if my Thalys tix back to Brussels will be rendered unusable if I don't use the 1st leg on the discount RT?

I am trying to underdstand all odf this.

Is one of the real issues here that you simply MUST be on the same flights?

Dukey:
My flights are now settled--yes, we did want to be on the same flight or at least from the same airport--delta hub us JFK, continental's is Newark for NYC. We also wanted to leave on the day our flight was scheduled to leave as we had train tix, a hotel reservation with a non-refundable deposit (though they did refund it for us)...the flights are now a dead issue.

I resolved last night and received some nice replies and help on the airline board where this was also posted.

My ???s now are with the Thalys discount tix.

cherrybomb - You may want to start a new thread about the train tickets.

When I was on the Thalys, the conductor certain checked the tickets, but I don't remember he punched in anything on his handheld computer. But I could be wrong.

Thanks rkkwan--you have been super helpful!