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Question about a short connection time w/ Choice Air


djh
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We are booked American business class Houston to Dallas, then Dallas to Santiago Chile next month. Choice air informed us of a change in our schedule, changing our connection time from 2 and 1/2 hours to 48 minutes. Of course this has us extremely concerned. We called Choice Air but they state our connection is within the allowed time so they will do nothing unless we cancel and rebook. I have two questions-

1) Has anybody had any luck in getting choice air to change a connecting flight in order to make an international flight? Is it worth calling several times and possibly getting someone more helpful?

2) if we miss the flight because our first leg is late, is it Americans problem or must we still deal with Choice Air. Any input will be greatly appreciated.

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Choice air should get someone to check on what the actual MCT for AA is at DFW. My sources say that the MCT for a domestic to international connection there is 50 minutes.

 

I suspect either a lazy agent, an ill-informed agent, or a Choice policy not to make changes unless the passenger really squawks about out. Nothing more than guesses on those.

 

Finally, if you get no satisfaction from Choice, contact AA directly. If there's a ticket with an illegal connection, I'd think they would want to change that, especially for business class passengers.

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I too would be nervous about that connection going from domestic to international at DFW. There are lots of flights from Houston to DFW each day. If I were you I would call back and tell them to give you one of the earlier flights from Houston. You certainly don't want to miss your international flight.

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Thanks for all the info. It was helpful when dealing with American and Choice Air. First we called American to find out what the MCT was and it was 45 minutes, but the agent was very helpful. She said yes, if there is any kind of delay, we’re screwed. She also said that since American made the schedule change, Choice should change it without fees. Next call to Choice Air, they said we would need a waiver code before the could cancel and rebook the flight (hoping in the meantime that our seats are still available). Then we called back to American, and got a very helpful agent that said, let me see if I can just change it. We questioned him about the fact that since it was a third party reservation, but he said, no problem I’ve changed it to an earlier fight. Very thankful that American was so helpful. Even though we are flying in two days early, this was really stressing me out!

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Then we called back to American, and got a very helpful agent that said, let me see if I can just change it. We questioned him about the fact that since it was a third party reservation, but he said, no problem I’ve changed it to an earlier fight. Very thankful that American was so helpful. Even though we are flying in two days early, this was really stressing me out!

 

The airlines can always "take over the reservation" (which sounds like what they did here), they just try to avoid doing it unless they have to. Once they do take over the reservation things are a little easier all around. After that happens choice air may not see the change in their system, that is ok, your best bet is to deal with American if you need any additional changes.

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Thanks for all the info. It was helpful when dealing with American and Choice Air. First we called American to find out what the MCT was and it was 45 minutes

 

Very interesting. KVS says 50, so I may need to have a bit of scepticism on their data.

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You may want to let choice air know of the change once it is completed by AA. I had a similar problem last fall and changed it directly with the airline without problem. Choice air called 2 months later and said they saw the change and it would be invalid unless choice air reissued the ticket. Not sure that would be true because I had the confirmation from the airline and reserved seats on the new schedule. Choice air said they would reissue the ticket to conform to the new schedule and sent me a confirmation that everything was fine. No change fees from the airline (Delta) or choice air as the schedule change was caused by Delta moving our departure to early morning on disembarkment day. We moved our return flight to the next day.

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You may want to let choice air know of the change once it is completed by AA. I had a similar problem last fall and changed it directly with the airline without problem. Choice air called 2 months later and said they saw the change and it would be invalid unless choice air reissued the ticket. Not sure that would be true because I had the confirmation from the airline and reserved seats on the new schedule. Choice air said they would reissue the ticket to conform to the new schedule and sent me a confirmation that everything was fine. No change fees from the airline (Delta) or choice air as the schedule change was caused by Delta moving our departure to early morning on disembarkment day. We moved our return flight to the next day.

I just received an email from Choice Air notifying me that the airline has changed my flight so now I’m good to go. I’m thankful that I didn’t have to talk to them again. Thanks for all the input.

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