flight drama continues..

[monpetitchou]

I've posted a few questions as I've been trying to book our flights to Greece this summer. (Here's the last one) We FINALLY booked our tickets and I was so relieved and figured I could stop bugging you guys and move on to the more fun parts of trip planning.  We did end up being able to book directly through AirCanada for flights with only 1 layover each way. While searching, I had eliminated all 2 layover options, even if they were cheaper, because we'd be traveling with my 15 month old son. do you see where this is going....

Today - less than a week after buying! - they changed my flights! Now on the way home we have 2 layovers and get back at midnight instead of 8pm. I am so ticked!! Is there even anything I can do about it? Looking online, Air Canada does not have any "good" return flights anymore. ARGGHHH.

We will survive, I know, but man....

[orangello]

No, you absolutely should call. United pulled this with us a while back and they eventually switched our flights back after much "well, I'm not supposed to do this, but..." crap. There was no reason for them to change our original flights other than they were trying to fill less travelled routes, and we ended up with an additional layover, which was unacceptable.

Good luck!

[monpetitchou]

It looks like what happened is our original Athens flight has been pushed back by an hour. So now there's not enough time to make the connection, which is why they rerouted us. I can call and complain, but I don't think they have any 1 layover options existing anymore. Would they be able to put me on another airline?

[Deleted]

I was booked to travel on United over the holidays and they changed their schedule, leaving us with a long layover and double connection back instead of a short layover and one connection. I was traveling from Hawaii to New Mexico with two kids and that was not at all what I wanted. I told them that and after a lot of "what about this" offerings, none of which I liked, I finally got him to agree to give us our money back with no penalty. I know you probably don't want to start the booking process again but if this really isn't your desired itinerary it might be the better way to go if another airline offered a better itinerary because I don't know if this far out they'll re-accommodate you on another one.

[Deleted]

I have no advice, but I'd be so pissed at Air Canada for doing that.

[anna7602]

I would call anyway and ask what they can do.

[babsbunny]

Things will go smoother if you know what you want, either the new AC flights (the exact flights you want) or a refund.

Consider checking the Air Canada board on flyertalk. I read aa daily and many times see people that use the airline changing their flights as an opportunity to get a better itinerary than they initially had, or cancel a flight for a refund that they no longer wanted to take.

For example, if someone has a ticketed flight they can no longer take, they will not cancel or pay the change fee but instead wait, because if the airline changes the schedule just enough (like a couple hours) then they can call and get a refund. It's kind of a mini loophole to the nonrefundable policy.

Best of luck!

[GilliC]

Jan 15, 2014 15:21:04 GMT -5 RockNVoll said:

Highly unlikely they can put you on another airline, but you can almost definitely cancel altogether and get your money back. That leaves you with having to do the booking stuff all over again though, but at least you're not completely stuck with this ticket if you don't want it.

This. If they change your booking and the new flight time doesn't work for you, you should be able to refund the ticket. You probably won't be able to negotiate on the number of layovers, but if they can't get you a flight within a certain range of your original departure and arrival times, you can usually get a refund.

(After all, what if you booked the 8-pm arrival because you had a 10:30 obligation? Obviously a 12:00 arrival wouldn't work for you.)

[gt7301b]

Personally, I'd keep the current itenary and wait till you get a little closer to call and see if they will refund your money. You are still early for summer travel to Europe and I bet you can find a much better deal in a couple of months. Once you find that deal you should be able to cancel and rebook.

[frlcb]

Jan 16, 2014 9:31:54 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Personally, I'd keep the current itenary and wait till you get a little closer to call and see if they will refund your money. You are still early for summer travel to Europe and I bet you can find a much better deal in a couple of months. Once you find that deal you should be able to cancel and rebook.

Hm. I have never found that the prices go down for a summer trip the close you get unless it's a fluke. And we travel over to Europe every year at least once.

[gt7301b]

Jan 16, 2014 9:34:20 GMT -5 frlcb said:

Jan 16, 2014 9:31:54 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Personally, I'd keep the current itenary and wait till you get a little closer to call and see if they will refund your money. You are still early for summer travel to Europe and I bet you can find a much better deal in a couple of months. Once you find that deal you should be able to cancel and rebook.

Hm. I have never found that the prices go down for a summer trip the close you get unless it's a fluke. And we travel over to Europe every year at least once.

Well I'm not suggesting she wait till June for a July trip, but I think it is too early for booking summer travel.  The only year my wait till spring to book summer travel rule didn't work was the year of the volcanoes in Iceland.

[monpetitchou]

Jan 16, 2014 9:31:54 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Personally, I'd keep the current itenary and wait till you get a little closer to call and see if they will refund your money. You are still early for summer travel to Europe and I bet you can find a much better deal in a couple of months. Once you find that deal you should be able to cancel and rebook.

This is probably a good thing to keep in mind, in case we do happen to see another decent itinerary. I'm not optimistic, but DH is. We've been watching flights for a few months now and in general they've all gone up by 100-200.

[frlcb]

Jan 16, 2014 9:40:43 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Jan 16, 2014 9:34:20 GMT -5 frlcb said:

Hm. I have never found that the prices go down for a summer trip the close you get unless it's a fluke. And we travel over to Europe every year at least once.

Well I'm not suggesting she wait till June for a July trip, but I think it is too early for booking summer travel.  The only year my wait till spring to book summer travel rule didn't work was the year of the volcanoes in Iceland.

I don't even think it is too early, but that has been our experience. It may vary by $50 or so but it never drops drastically as the months go on. Again, in my experience.

[Deleted]

Jan 16, 2014 9:31:54 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Personally, I'd keep the current itenary and wait till you get a little closer to call and see if they will refund your money. You are still early for summer travel to Europe and I bet you can find a much better deal in a couple of months. Once you find that deal you should be able to cancel and rebook.

I disagree. 

You probably won't get a better deal waiting for a summer flight.

id figure out what the OP wants and try to get it now.

[Deleted]

Also i think air canada is star alliance so check their alliance partner flights.

[Deleted]

Jan 17, 2014 14:36:18 GMT -5 @lauriergirl28 said:

Jan 16, 2014 9:31:54 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Personally, I'd keep the current itenary and wait till you get a little closer to call and see if they will refund your money. You are still early for summer travel to Europe and I bet you can find a much better deal in a couple of months. Once you find that deal you should be able to cancel and rebook.

I disagree. 

You probably won't get a better deal waiting for a summer flight.

id figure out what the OP wants and try to get it now.

I have to agree. The way that airlines have been cutting back on flights, I think the prices just keep getting worse.

[gt7301b]

Jan 17, 2014 14:36:18 GMT -5 @lauriergirl28 said:

Jan 16, 2014 9:31:54 GMT -5 gt7301b said:

Personally, I'd keep the current itenary and wait till you get a little closer to call and see if they will refund your money. You are still early for summer travel to Europe and I bet you can find a much better deal in a couple of months. Once you find that deal you should be able to cancel and rebook.

I disagree. 

You probably won't get a better deal waiting for a summer flight.

id figure out what the OP wants and try to get it now.

This atricle suggests that the optimal time to purchase International airfare is 81 days in advance, which is inline with what I have also experienced.

www.cbsnews.com/news/when-is-the-optimal-time-to-book-a-flight/

[mpc]

OP here, I wanted to come back and update how this was resolved. Last week we spotted a great itinerary on a different airline for $70 more per person. When you're talking $1500 tickets, $70 doesn't seem like that big of a deal, lol. Anyway, we decided it was worth it to us, so I called AirCanada and they did refund my tickets 100% due to the time change. Then we went and bought the other tickets. I am very relieved and appreciate the advice I got here. Thanks!

[sicilygirl]

Thanks to this post, I called about my flight that's itinerary had been changed and was able to request a new, better time. I was just going to let it go that the change was going to inconvenience us, until I saw this post so thank you!

[mpc]

Mar 5, 2014 12:35:24 GMT -5 sicilygirl said:

Thanks to this post, I called about my flight that's itinerary had been changed and was able to request a new, better time. I was just going to let it go that the change was going to inconvenience us, until I saw this post so thank you!

Awesome!