Can airlines cancel flights and book you on another without asking?

[zqvol]

22 hours ago, pattycake1939 said:

Hi all..........I had a cruise booked with NCL on Apr.30th that has been cancelled. I am waiting until the 13th as they requested to fill in the form for a refund as none of us are sure when we can cruise with safety again. My hotel called me themselves and cancelled 2 weeks ago (Miami Hampton Inn) which I really appreciated as that was one more thing I didn't have to deal with. My airline, however....American.... is another story. I have been monitoring the flights on our dates and have not cancelled as yet because I was waiting to see what the cruise lines did first. Yesterday, the site I use posted no flights available, today also, so I searched out our reservation and they dropped all but one non-stop for my dates and moved us to that one.....no email....no notification.......just sneaky silence on their part. Even if the cruise was still on it wouldn't have worked, early morning return before the ship would have docked!  I am still not calling them until I deal with the cruise next week, but I can't believe they did it this way. I am still hoping since they cancelled my flight I will get a refund, but this sure puts them on my " don't fly list" with Spirit, so I do not want a credit. I am 81 and may not want to fly again, who knows?  I am sure so sad about our beautiful cruises though, they are my happy place, as they are for so many of us.  I just was wondering if anyone else had their airline pull a fast one like this on them.    Thanks in advance for any info and please stay safe and well out there............Patti

 

Happens all the time, even when there is not a pandemic going on.

[Valchie]

I would like to thank the CC community for their wealth of information. I held out for a cancellation of our 4/12 cruise (check ✔) but was waiting until this Friday to call the airlines to cancel, hoping that they "blinked" first.  And I read here that the airlines sometimes make inconvenient schedule changes that may result in a refund versus a credit. I am not a ""virgin traveler" (most of our travels go forward without a hitch) But this climate is very different.

 So long story short our flights were changed, I called American and found that we are entitied to a refund of the fare paid.  In the small scheme of things we made out.  But to those that have much MUCH more to worry about I wish you well. Peace.

[BDHPlayer]

On 4/6/2020 at 5:24 PM, sanger727 said:

American is shady. They are already on my no fly list for another incident with them. I believe that if the time change of your flight was significant (like more than 2 hours) you are entitled to cancel for a refund. I don't know if there is a time restriction on that so if you already know you can't use it I would do it sooner than later.

I remember that years ago America West (now part of American) changed my flight times by around 2 minutes.  Since circumstances changed and we didn't want to take the trip at that time, we were able to get a full refund.  It was a trip for a medical procedure that required a waiting period that we were unaware of.

 

How times have changed.