Good 'Ol American Airlines!

Dennis

Senior Insider
Got a Flight Schedule change email this morning. I guess I should be happy that I was notified.

AA eliminated the 5:00 AM AUS-CLT flight on 11-27.

Changed my AUS-CLT-SXM outbound flight to AUS-MIA-SXM. My original schedule had me in SXM by 2:30 to catch the 4:00 St Barths Commuter.

The new schedule arrives in SXM at 4:30. No Bueno!

Thankfully, I booked with AMEX on points. So a call to AMEX and I was able to change to a less than ideal but workable solution.

11-26: AUS-CLT

Overnight at the CLT Sheraton on points.

11-27: CLT-SXM arriving at 2:30.

The upside is I won't have to wake up at 3:00 AM to start my vaca!

Check your flights, people!
 
Do not get me started on AA. We booked about 4 months ago and shortly thereafter got notice of a flight change on the return. Leaving SXM about an hour later but had us overnighting in Philadelphia and not getting home until 9 PM the following day. We held on to the flight until about two weeks ago, hoping for a better option. Finally switched to United (for way more $$$) and decided to move our arrival up a day (bonus for the hassle!) AA gave us zero problems with the cancellation but still...
On a positive note, St. Barth Commuter was lovely to deal with. They changed our inbound flight, and since we now have to leave from Grand Case (SXM was sold out) put us on a waitlist for SXM. Love them.
 
Do not get me started on AA. We booked about 4 months ago and shortly thereafter got notice of a flight change on the return. Leaving SXM about an hour later but had us overnighting in Philadelphia and not getting home until 9 PM the following day. We held on to the flight until about two weeks ago, hoping for a better option. Finally switched to United (for way more $$$) and decided to move our arrival up a day (bonus for the hassle!) AA gave us zero problems with the cancellation but still...
On a positive note, St. Barth Commuter was lovely to deal with. They changed our inbound flight, and since we now have to leave from Grand Case (SXM was sold out) put us on a waitlist for SXM. Love them.

Yikes!

As I was on the phone today with AMEX, explaining the trials and tribulations of getting to SBH, she commented that it must be a poor island 'cause the airport closes at dusk....:slap-wink:
 
We went through this with AA a few months ago for our upcoming November trip. After 3 changes, we switched to Delta through ATL. So far, so good with that flight. Fingers crossed!
 
We always overnight in CLT coming from Indianapolis with the weather risks in February. Out of curiosity, have you considered going through SJU on Tradewind, realizing it is probably more expensive?
 
We always overnight in CLT coming from Indianapolis with the weather risks in February. Out of curiosity, have you considered going through SJU on Tradewind, realizing it is probably more expensive?

Hop, as Kevin always says: "run the numbers". I have. They don't work for us.

We'd still have to overnight in San Juan and the Tradewind cost is a no-go vs. what we're doing.
 
Yes, will you be there too?

YES!! See ya there...can't wait.

Hop, as Kevin always says: "run the numbers". I have. They don't work for us.

We'd still have to overnight in San Juan and the Tradewind cost is a no-go vs. what we're doing.

My issue with Tradewinds is that from Pittsburgh, its still 3 legs. If I lived in a city with a direct to SJU I'd be all in. But if I still have to do three legs, why pay all that $$$?
 
Atleast it wasnt the day of! We happened to get a text at 5 am that our Austin to Htown 8;40 flight was canceled ..we had to make the Htown to Puerto Rico flight, otherwise it would have screwed up our entire trip..United dodnt offer any alternative options..so my husband said jump in the truck..we will drive to Houston! Luckily it was a Saturday. he drove about a 100mph, while i tried to finish packing in the back seat..needles to say it was stressful to HOPEFULLY make it to the airport..we got there in about 3 hours...made the flight by maybe 8 minutes to spare! Crazy..it was our very first time to St.Barts and i put a ton of planning in to our trip..thanfully we got on that flight due to my husband's quick thinking!
 
My issue with Tradewinds is that from Pittsburgh, its still 3 legs. If I lived in a city with a direct to SJU I'd be all in. But if I still have to do three legs, why pay all that $$$?

Yep. It's still AUS-Somewhere-SJU-Overnight-$$$$.

I think the TW flight would be over $1300 for 2, one way to SBH.

Our entire flights + hotel in CLT will be about $1800.

I wish I could make it work but as MB said, without a direct AUS-SJU, it doesn't.
 
Atleast it wasnt the day of! We happened to get a text at 5 am that our Austin to Htown 8;40 flight was canceled ..we had to make the Htown to Puerto Rico flight, otherwise it would have screwed up our entire trip..United dodnt offer any alternative options..so my husband said jump in the truck..we will drive to Houston! Luckily it was a Saturday. he drove about a 100mph, while i tried to finish packing in the back seat..needles to say it was stressful to HOPEFULLY make it to the airport..we got there in about 3 hours...made the flight by maybe 8 minutes to spare! Crazy..it was our very first time to St.Barts and i put a ton of planning in to our trip..thanfully we got on that flight due to my husband's quick thinking!


OMG! This vision! :slap-wink:
 
We always overnight in CLT coming from Indianapolis with the weather risks in February. Out of curiosity, have you considered going through SJU on Tradewind, realizing it is probably more expensive?

Booking our flights now from Indy for next June and saw there was a Delta flight through Atlanta. Curious if you or anyone has experience with this flight? Trying to avoid the AA cancellation issue, but also concerned since that’s the only flight out of Atlanta to SXM for the day.
 
We have always gone through CLT and once thru WashDC which was a mistake. Since it is the only flight so it will probably be full and you won’t have the winter weather concerns, I would book it to go the whole way in one day.
 
We have always gone through CLT and once thru WashDC which was a mistake. Since it is the only flight so it will probably be full and you won’t have the winter weather concerns, I would book it to go the whole way in one day.

Okay thank you! The AA flight is in one day too. Just trying to decide between delta connecting through ATL, or AA connecting through CLT. Both are the same price and about the same times.
 
The upside is I won't have to wake up at 3:00 AM to start my vaca!

I'm with you on this point, Dennis! During "the season," there's a reasonable AA departure out of JAX (10:30 or 11 AM) that I can use to get to SBH in one day (three flights), but in the off season, a 6 AM departure is required. It's no longer in my world! So, on my current trip (arrived SBH yesterday), Wendy and I "overnighted" in the hotel at MIA on Monday. It's not a great place, but not expensive, and we were there only about 10 hours. It made our arrival on SBH (3 PM) -- and the rest of the day -- much more comfortable.
 
Okay thank you! The AA flight is in one day too. Just trying to decide between delta connecting through ATL, or AA connecting through CLT. Both are the same price and about the same times.

I had a Delta one-day routing ticketed from AUS-ATL-SXM (5:00am departure) only to have Delta eliminate the 5:00am flight. I ended up taking a late evening flight the night before my ATL-SXM leg, using Bonvoy points to stay at the ATL Marriott and arriving at SXM in time for the 2:00pm SBC to SBH. My point: Be careful, Delta plays the same cancellation game as American.
 
The lesson here is to “keep checking”

What is the part of ‘customer service’ that airlines No longer use.
 
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