For domestic flights, it’s almost always better to book two separate one-way flights than one roundtrip. Unlike international flights, there’s generally no discount to book roundtrip domestic flights. You’ll have greater flexibility, and that the return flight won’t be affected if the airline (or you) cancels the outbound flight.
For Jetblue, 2xOneWay seems same cost as round trip. (Our next trip is actually done that way, partly because we had enough points for a free one way ticket and partly to get a more flexible return ticket.) For United in the past, there has seemed to be economy for round trip.
I very much understand anxiety of elderly people flying these day if they are not savvy smartphone users. Honestly, if had to fly without my cellphone (or only with voice capability) it would be stressful.
Yes, and of course she only has a flip phone which barely receives text messages.
And if she’s like my Dad, there are some vision and hearing challenges too. When he visited in his 80s, I arranged wheelchair assistance. (He was hesitant to accept that since he was more mobile then. But he thanked me profusely later, said he would have never made the connection with his slow pace and unfamiliarity with the layover airport.). On his return trip I gave him a pad of paper and a pen. Wrote flight info in BIG letters. Told him to ask helpers to write info for him if he could not hear in the loud terminals.
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@bluedog23 I’d look into one (or more) of these apps -
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Aren’t these EU/UK - based? The laws there are much more favorable for travelers than in the US, AFAIK.
I didn’t look that deeply into it -
Our local paper featured a column by Chris Elliott. He runs a consumer advocacy site. Maybe contact them?
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I just wanted to throw in tha some credit cards offer free trip cancellation insurance; have you checked with her CC co. or perhaps yours (for the subsequent purchase)?
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Generally the coverage provided by credit cards covers reimbursement for your “prepaid expenses” which means maybe getting the cost of your original ticket refunded if the airline won’t do so. But it doesn’t usually cover the cost of a replacement ticket. Also, coverage only kicks in if your trip is cancelled for a covered reason, such as serious illness or death in the family or whatever is described in the terms and conditions. Cancellations caused by the airlines are usually not covered reasons. Obviously read the terms and conditions of whatever credit card you are using, but this has been my experience.
Unfortunately, SW has recently been really bad with cancellations. We used to live in Chicagoland and flying SW out of Midway usually worked. However, from our present, smaller, city, about half of the late flights that I booked on SW have been cancelled. At this point, I never book any SW flight out of here after 4 PM, especially if I have to transfer (which I generally do). I still prefer to fly SW when I can.
American does suck, but my wife and I have been members for a long time, and my wife flies enough to have Platinum Executive status. The minus is that she is flying that much which sucks big time. The plus is that things like cancellations affect her differently.
Aso, American flights out of our present city tend to be cheaper than the rest, except SW. They also fly to Israel from here (not directly, of course, but you can buy a ticket to Israel from here), and to other places tio which we travel a lot.
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Canceling flights by all the airlines is bad. But for my mom, they stranded her in a city where she has no family or friends and just abandoned her. It is one thing to cancel at the start, but this is, in my opinion, completely wrong.
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To me it sounds like AA canceled her connecting flight with no good options to get to her destination. So you booked her on an airline that isn’t revenue sharing (Southwest). And then, in AA’s infinite wisdom, they canceled the rest of the trip due to skipping a segment.
Got to hand it to American Airlines, they know how to treat a customer? Flying is horrible right now.
I hope you can get recompensed on this nightmare. I’d put this on their Facebook site and Twitter. And everywhere you can. Stranding a senior, not cool!
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It serves as a warrning for those with vulnerable travelers ( whether minorrs, seniors, disabled)-one has to anticipate adverse events when flying these days and be prepared to respond accordingly.
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I was just typing a similar message. As mentioned above and as described in the NerdWallet article linked above, when your flight is cancelled speed is of the essence in rebooking because you’re competing with a planeload of other disappointed passengers to grab the best alternatives. The ticket agents at the gate are swarmed and by the time your 80 year old mom can talk to someone, the best options have been snapped up by people who know how to do it on their smartphones.
This is the harsh reality of travel these days. If you can find a better airline alternative, go for it. But we’ve stuck with AA due to lack of alternatives, and we’ve learned to keep checking the app for updates and changes. OP mentioned that the tickets were booked 3 months prior. That’s another reason to keep checking. We had flights on AA for our kid’s graduation a few weeks ago, also booked about 3 months prior, and AA changed the flights 2 separate times after the initial booking as they shuffled their schedules around. Everytime they changed they rebooked us on flights we didn’t like and we had to call and change them to our preference. It was super annoying but they had the only nonstop we needed.
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Another thought about vulnerable travelers such as the elderly: avoid connecting flights if at all possible, even if it means paying more for a nonstop. I recognize that often connecting flights are inevitable, but obviously they increase the risk of something going wrong.
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There are many areas of the country where you cannot get from here to there nonstop. For no amount of money.
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I think it’s terrible that they just abandoned an elderly person like that. It’s aggravating that airlines do that anyway, but they really should have a special customer service for the elderly.
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I agree that it’s often impossible to find non-stop flights. I am willing to drive 5 hours (depending on the flight) in order to have non-stop flights. But does anyone know if there’s a website where you can pick a destination city and it just shows which airports have direct flights? For example, we are going to Quebec City in October. But I can’t seem to find a direct flight even from DC, but I swear last fall I could find them.
One time my daughter was flying to California from Florida on SW. No direct flights After first flight left I got a notice that her connection was delayed 3 hours in Denver, so she’d miss the event she was going to. Got on the phone and worked it out that she’d fly into Santa Ana rather than LAX (which was actually better for those picking her up) and she got there earlier than originally scheduled.
They couldn’t rebook her on the phone because they couldn’t switch the ticket while she was on the plane, but we worked it out that when she got off the plane she was to go to the gate agent for the next flight and talk to ‘Betsy’ who knew how to change the ticket. She had about 30 minutes to do all this. She was very confused when I texted all this to her but she did what I told her to and it all worked out.
Really, they were great. I think she was 17 but was not flying as an unaccompanied minor. Sometimes airlines do go above and beyond.
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It appears AA does have special service for seniors that must be booked in advance.
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