United

July 24, 2014

Good To Know: Your Flight is Cancelled – What Do You Do? Here is My Experience.

As I alluded to in this post on the advantage of schedule changes, I used the schedule change to obtain a better flight to Anchorage but low and behold, I did not get to take advantage of that flight as it was cancelled. Thankfully I found out the night before from United that my connecting flight from LaGuardia to Chicago was cancelled. Here are some of the steps I took and some tips to remember the next time you have a cancellation.

Something you never want to see...

Something you never want to see…

1) Always give the airline your cell number and permission to text you with flight updates (at time of making reservation)- I was on the train home from work when I got a text from United that my flight the next morning was cancelled. Interestingly, I was not notified by email so without this text I likely would have missed or at the very least, found out hours later that my flight was cancelled. The earlier you know, the more options you will have to fix the situation.

2) Start researching other flight options – The first thing I do is look to see if the same airline I am suppose to be flying has any more flights that day to my destination. I start with the same airline as it is generally easier to get rebooked on their own flights. That said, airlines will book you on other airlines if they cannot accommodate you on their own flights. This is especially true if you tell the airline you need to be at your destination by a certain time for a family event, cruise, imporant meeting etc.

So after noting the possible flight options from your original airline, use Kayak or similar sites to get an idea what other airlines are flying to your destination and note the times. Make a list of the best three options or so and be prepared to push the agent to get rebooked on another airline.

3) Try to rebook online AND call the airline to rebook at the same time –  This applies if you are not at the airport, but simultaneously trying to rebook online while waiting on hold for an airline agent, can save you a lot of time, especially if you did the legwork to find possible flights above. In my case, United allows you to rebook a cancelled or delayed flight at www.united.com/rebook but this was not a perfect soultion. It was showing departures leaving NY that connected only through Chicago (my original routing) to get to Anchorage. Meanwhile, while doing my legwork above, I knew there was a later option routing through San Francisco that the system was not showing me.

So while I was online looking at my possible options, I called United and waited on hold. While on hold with United, I noticed the later Chicago to Anchorage flight at 5:40pm had only 2 first class seats left (remember I booked a first class award to Alaska so I only wanted first class seats which made this tougher). However the only possible NY to Chicago option the online system showed me involved a 5 hour layover and had economy seats. That said, I chose that option online to secure the last two first class seats from Chicago to Anchorage. This proved to be vital as you will see below in step 4.

Even though I had a new flight to Alaska, it wasn’t perfect (due to the long layover, economy seats from NY to Chicago and I wanted to see if the San Francisco option I found on my own was still available) so I continued to wait on hold until I got an agent. When I gave the agent my confirmation number, they were able to see the new flights I had just chose online only a few minutes prior. I explained the issue with the NY to Chicago flight but the agent didn’t seem to grasp what I was trying to do. This leads me to my favorite piece of advice…

4) H.U.C.A. – Remember this post about Hang Up, Call Again? Well, it worked out for me this time as the next agent instantly understood what I was trying to do. He checked availability for all first class options to Anchorage (including options from Denver and San Francisco) and told me they were all sold out. The 2 first class seats I secured for myself online earlier were the only first class seats left to Anchorage so I knew I had to connect through Chicago.

I knew there are several flights daily from the NY region that would get me into Chicago in time to make my flight but in my research while on hold, I saw there was now no first class from NY to Chicago at all. Since I really wanted first class for the much longer flight of the two (Chicago to Anchorage clocks in at over 6 hours in the air), I had no choice but to accept economy seats for the short NY to Chicago flight. I asked the agent to put us on the EWR-ORD flight that would give us  a two hour layover in Chicago and to assign exit rows seats since we had booked first class tickets but first class was not available. He did this without any problem and I confirmed our brand new itinerary was newly ticketed.

It turns out the exit room was plenty spacious for a two hour flight so in the end, we didn’t miss out too much. I hope I illustrated how important it is to act right away once you get notified of a cancellation. Remember everyone else on that plane and potentially thousands of others from other flights that may have also been cancelled, are competing with you for a limited number of seats.

In my case, I got the last two first class seats to Anchorage, otherwise I would have been forced to sit in economy the whole way, which obviously wasn’t ideal since I highlighted here why first class to Alaska (for me) is worth it. Lastly, if the first agent says no to a reasonable rebooking request or doesn’t sound knowledge,  don’t waste any more time with them and hang up, call again.

Stay tuned for a future post about what to do if a flight is cancelled or severely delayed and you are already stuck at the airport. Here’s hoping your next flight isn’t cancelled!

 

 

 

 

July 16, 2014

Good To Know: How to Take Advantage of a Schedule Change on your Flight

If you are like most people, you probably book your flights 3+ months out for any type of big trip or vacation. If you are using miles, you might even book earlier, as in my experience the more time I give myself to find a flight using miles, the more likely I’m able to get the flights I want for free. However, the downside (or upside to some) of booking early is there is a greater chance of a schedule change for your flight.

In some cases, the schedule change might actually benefit you. If you’re in no rush to get to your destination, an extra hour to sleep in and avoid that 6am flight sounds lovely. Unfortunately, I’ve had more bad schedules changes than good ones but here are two key takeaways to remember when dealing with a schedule change, especially ones not in your favor.

board

1) The Ability to Switch to a Better Flight 

When you purchase a flight, your overall objective might be to secure the cheapest flight so you agree to take a flight that maybe gets in later in the day after dinnertime even though you’d really prefer to get there mid-afternoon so you can enjoy a little time on the beach. Sp you booked the cheaper flight that gets in later about 5 months ago but guess what – you just got an email from the airline that now you will arrive about an hour later. It’s time to make this schedule change go from a negative to a positive by asking the airline to schedule you on the best flight for you to your destination.

I actually had this exact issue happen to me for our flight to Alaska last month. We were initially booked on a 12pm flight (using miles) on United leaving JFK that connected in San Francisco to a flight to Anchorage that would get us in around 7pm.  I got a notification that the San Francisco to Anchorage leg changed to two hours later, now causing a 3.5 hour layover and an arrival in Anchorage after 9pm. We were meeting friends for dinner so this was not going to work.

I wanted to get to Anchorage even earlier and I saw a flight from LGA that connected  in Chicago that would get us in to Anchorage at 1:22pm but there was no award availability. Some people would stop here and not bother calling but I’m here to tell you it didn’t matter there was no award availability. I simply called United and explained the new flight times from San Francisco to Anchorage didn’t work for us as I had a meeting “I needed to be at” by 8pm so I needed to get to Anchorage by 7pm to make this “meeting”.

Instead of letting the representative suggest a replacement flight for me, I told him I researched other flights and I would like the LGA-ORD-ANC flight and he had no issues putting us on it as he was manually able to open award availability for it. When we first booked our flights, that specific flight was not available on miles but the San Francisco option was so we chose that even though our goal was to get to Anchorage as early as possible. The schedule change by United actually allowed us to switch to a better flight for us (though due to a bunch of other issues we actually didn’t fly this route…that’s the next blog post).

2) The Ability to Cancel Your Flight for Free

Sometimes the schedule change is so great it doesn’t make sense to take the trip anymore, especially if its a short trip. Since the airline didn’t hold up its end of the bargain with the scheduled flight times you booked, you can request a free refund for your flight, even if its on a non-refundable ticket. For example, your return flight was moved up two hours but now you can’t make a “scheduled lunch with a client” so you can explain that to the agent and tell them you need to cancel the flight as a result. They should waive the $150 or $200 cancellation fee and put the money right back on your credit card.

You can also take this approach to cancel a flight that you booked that you don’t want to take anymore. This actually happened to me as I booked Andrea and myself a weekend getaway last December to Miami when I saw a cheap fare under $200 but as the trip was drawing closer, we both didn’t want to go anymore. She was working a lot and we wanted to enjoy the Christmas season at home together. Looking for a way out of this flight, I looked at the reservation and noticed the return flight changed to arrive 25 minutes later than scheduled. 

I had my ticket (no pun intended) to cancel this flight for free. I simply called up Delta and explained arriving any later than initially scheduled would jeopardize an onward connection I had on another separate ticket so I needed to cancel this flight. They offered to put me on an earlier flight but I told them I had changed to an earlier flight myself separately, so they proceeded to cancel our flights for free! I might have stretched the truth about an onward connection that I would miss but it allowed me to get out of a non-refundable ticket for free.

One BIG PIECE of Advice – H.U.C.A

For a small time change in the flight of say under 20 minutes, it might be tough to convince an agent that you need to be switched to the earlier/later flight. Even if its a legitimate change of several hours some agents might refuse to change it still. Don’t let that discourage you. Follow the mantra of H.U.C.A. (hang up, call again) and you might get an agent who is more sympathetic about you being late to that all important “business meeting”. I’ve found saying you will miss something business related, family related or missing another flight that you booked on a separate ticket are the easiest ways to convince an agent why the schedule change doesn’t work for you and you need to cancel/change flights.

Leave me any questions in the comments!

 

 

June 30, 2014

Award Trip Breakdown: First Class Flights to Alaska for $5

Andrea and I just got back from an Alaskan cruise (which I highly recommend) and in order to get to Alaska to meet the cruise, we had to book flights to Anchorage from New York. This post goes over exactly how we booked first class flights to Anchorage for $5.

When looking for flights to Alaska from New York during the summer, we quickly came across one realization: Flights are really freaking expensive! It was over $300 one way and it was difficult to find itineraries that were under $300 and did not involve really long layovers. I quickly realized I needed to use miles to get the best flights.

If you read other points and miles bloggers (and you should), they generally do not recommend redeeming miles from the legacy carries (America, Delta, United, US Airways) for domestic coach travel (12,500 miles one way) and especially domestic flight class (25,000 miles each way). Domestic first class is just essentially a bigger seat, some free entertainment and a meal that ranges from disgusting to somewhat eligible but at a cost of double coach travel.

United Domestic First Class

United Domestic First Class

However, looking at our situation, I decided to look for first class awards for the following reasons:

  • Flying NY to Alaska is over 8 hours of actual flying. That’s longer than many flights to Europe from New York. Most airlines charge 30,000 miles in COACH for one way travel to Europe, so for 5,000 less miles on a longer flight I got a better seat, food, drinks and entertainment.
  • First Class flights were pricing near $800 for our date. This resulted in per mile value of 3.2 cents ($800/25,000*100). For a domestic redemption this is fantastic as a good redemption can range from 1.5 – 2 cents per mile.
  • Since I’m 6′ 3”, I prefer business class and up on any flight over 6 hours. This isn’t to say I couldn’t survive this flight in coach (I’ve done 11 hours in coach) but I do value a more comfortable experience for 8 hours.
  • I have over 3 million miles across currently and every day I hold miles, they lose value. I don’t gain anything for holding them but instead as shown by the recent devaluations made by the airlines, my miles tomorrow may not get me as far if the cost of a trip in miles is increased.

Searching for availability was quite easy for this trip and I found some availability with United connecting in San Francisco. This would enable us to actually have lie-flat seats on the JFK to SFO segment before flying SFO to ANC. However, due to a schedule change, delays and cancellations this isn’t what we actually flew. I will discuss what happened to our initial flights and the process to fix them in a followup post on this.

Summary of Flights:

Departing (booked): United Airlines JFK-SFO-ANC for a cost of 25,000 miles plus $5 in taxes per person for First Class.
Departing (actually flown): United Airlines EWR-ORD-ANC for a cost of 25,000 miles plus $5 in taxes per person for First Class.

Miles Used: Transferred 50,000 Ultimate Rewards from my Chase Sapphire account to United. These points were obtained by using my Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

In short, we traveled to Alaska in style in First Class to start our cruise for a cost of 25,000 miles plus $5 per person. Compared to economy flights with long layovers over $300 and First Class flights costing $800, I think we made the right choice.

What do you think?