Here's an odd flight change...
Some of you may recall from a previous posting that I found a great flight from Denver to Cairo for this trip. I avoided Heathrow and I avoided a 4.5 hour fake biz class seat on a European airline. I booked Air Canada, via Montreal, with one stop and a 90 minute layover. I recently was on the United site for another flight, and took a look at this one.
Lo and behold, my Denver to Montreal flight was changed (no email notification received). Originally, it arrived at 4:30 PM with the Montreal to Cairo flight departing 6:00 PM. Now, they have me on a Denver to Montreal flight arriving 11 PM, but didn't change the second leg. So yes, I would have arrived Montreal 5 hours after the flight departed!
So I found a substitute flight to get to Montreal in time, couldn't rebook online, and rebooked it via telephone - a process that took about an hour on the phone with United, not including the "our lines are busy and we'll call you back in about 90 minutes"
I wonder if these flight/changes/rebookings are done by computer or human? In either case, how could they make such a dumb mistake?
Moral of the story - when you book early (I did this 10 months out), check on your flight status regularly to avoid surprises.
Comments
I have had similar experiences twice: once on United/Lufthansa and once on Aer Lingus. (United cancelled my flight from AMM to FRA but didn't cancel FRA to BOS and EI 's change had me leaving DUB before I arrived.). I think I'll check my upcoming flights now!
I book early as possible, too. I regularly check the status and increase the frequency of my checks the closer we get to departure- we have just a tad over two weeks to go for our next trip, so I have been checking daily, sometimes twice daily.
Over the past 10 months our Turkish flights/times haven't changed, except for the one change I initiated, but the aircraft have- to our disadvantage. Several months ago they switched the aircraft for the long haul outbound leg from a fairly new 787-9 with 1-2-1 seating in business class, to an older 777 with 2-3-2 seating where only one of us would have direct aisle access. I made a change and all was right again. Then, just two weeks ago they did the same thing to our return leg. Unfortunately, both alternatives come with a poison pill.
Aircraft assignments could change, however since Turkish has cancelled all flights to Ukraine, Socchi and Rostov, Russia; Minsk, Belarus, etc. but those flights don't typically employ wide-body aircraft.
Delta, on the other hand has changed our feeder flights to the US gateways used by Turkish more times than I can count- sometimes with a notification, sometimes not!
Both the tours we cancelled, not Tauck, were because our flights kept being changed or cancelled, making the journey impossible or a marathon experience. We haven’t even attempted to book our September Singapore Bali flights yet, as Bali hasn’t opened up, but to not have booked by this time so near the date is very unusual for us. Air Canada was one of the flights host disappeared.
Love to know who and why BKMD and Alan’s posts were flagged. I don’t usually notice hte flags but did this time.
I also have not booked the September Singapore Bali flights, I had been tracking Delta when all of a sudden there were no flights available.
Gladys, look for a pm from me
A sicko and coward who likes to hide behind anonymity. Best to simply ignore.
Rebooking can be so mindless it must be done by computer. Our return from J&E was booked on Air Canada from Cairo to Montreal. When Air Canada canceled their Cairo flights I received an e-mail saying something like "there has been a schedule change but don't worry, we have rebooked you". When I checked it turned out they had rebooked us on a flight from Frankfurt instead of from Cairo. I can't believe a person would think leaving from Frankfurt was a reasonable substitute for leaving from Cairo.
We’ve had flight changes for our July Alaska trip today, it never ends these days
My husband checked the itinerary yesterday for our Northern Spain and the Douro river cruise. We will have to stay one night in Chicago and we are on a flight the following morning that leaves at 5:00 am for Tucson. It is a mess! I hope that Tauck will come up with a better solution.
Noreen - I always book my own flights. It takes time to find the best flights and nobody else is going to spend that time, besides me.
For example, the flights I rebooked for my Cairo flight doesn't show up in gooole flights or kayak. What I wound up doing was searching for the Denver to Montreal leg on its own and that's how I found what I finally booked. When I called United, they had to enter each leg manually to make it work. Don't give up; spend some time yourself searching online for alternatives.
BKMD - Thank you! I appreciate your response.
You can do all the research you like, tell Tauck and then they change things back, which is why we gave up on our Israel tour.
Not if you book air yourself.
Tauck has always assisted me with domestic flights. I don't know if they will assist you on international flights since I always have them book for me. It's worth a try. However, given they seem to be swamped right now they might not be so obliging. Good luck.