rbnwdlr

We used FF to book tickets from the midwest to New York on NWA. We are then catching a SwissAir flight to Italy. We just got our second change notice from NWA since Feb and our return flights are 11 hours earlier than our initial booking! Huh? Since we don't return to New York from Italy until noon and our original flight didn't leave NY until 6Pm, this is a problem! So I called NWA and after getting hung up on once, I got a guy who took about a half hour on the phone to change our flights to something we may be able to catch. AND now, we have no seats and will have to start over on that. AND what if they change it for the third time? Is this a common practice to change scheduled flights to 11 hours earlier? This is driving me nuts.

morrowd

I've recently had my flights switched as well. We booked 2 separate flights through Orbitz, one from our hometown to Boston and the second from Boston to Rome. While my layovers were not as inconvient as yours, when they changed one flight connection I looked at all the options and they (Orbitz)were able to find me other flights to accomodate us and changed us too at no charge. It probably depends on how flexible your FF tickets are? Good luck!

WillTravel

Yes, I had huge changes for my flights to/from Buenos Aires. These were reward tickets with Air Canada, but Air Canada changed their schedules drastically so I just had to find something that worked.

yk

Airlines are free to change their flight schedules as they wish, depending on demand and other flight schedules, crew availability etc.

Have you checked NWA's website to see how many flights daily there are from NY to your home town? If there are multiple flights, are there any that leave later in the day than the newly-assigned one that leaves at 6am?

Before I call the airline, I always check on their website to look up flight schedules and flight #s, so I can tell the phone agent exactly which flight I WANT, rather than letting them tell me which I have to take. Of course, if the other later flights of that day to your hometown don't have any more FF seats available, you may be out of luck.

bettyk

Many of the airlines are starting to cut flights and take planes out of service due to fewer travellers. If flights are filling up, they are likely to be cut.

Makes planning very difficult, but then when have the airlines worried about their customers?

rbnwdlr

Yes, it makes planning difficult. We aren't regular FF users and it takes a lot for us to acquire enough miles to get a ticket. Then we can't redeem them for any flights that are reasonable at all. Makes me crazy. But we were able to change to something that worked, albeit not as well. I just called to get seat assignments AGAIN and got a snarky person who was very short with me. If they change these suckers again, oy vey. Such work to be able to park myself in a filthy seat the size of a child's potty chair and enough legroom for a pre-schooler. Just when I thought I had this trip to Italy all set. As Rosanna Rosannadana said, "It's always something."

StuDudley

>>>If flights are filling up, they are likely to be cut.<<

Did you miss a "not" here???

Isn't NWA famous for canceling flights??

Stu Dudley

bettyk

Sorry, should be if flights AREN'T filling up.