Always Re-Price Reservations When There’s an Airline Caused Schedule Change

In February, I’m scheduled to fly out to Seattle for our next Frequent Traveler University Advanced event, and several months ago I booked my ticket to try and lock in a cheap rate.

Because of the timing of the event, and it being on the west coast, I needed to take a redeye back to the east coast, which surprisingly drives up the cost of the ticket a bit. I’m used to it having done many of these round-trips before, and there’s a very convenient Los Angeles to Washington Dulles flight that is my usual favorite.

To make a long story short, my original flights had me departing Seattle around 5:30p on a Sunday, and then connecting into LAX for an appreciate 10p flight to Washington DC.

I received a schedule change notice today and found out the LAX to IAD flight for the day I was flying was somehow eliminated (not sure why), and with this, I was placed on a 1p flight to Charlotte, arriving home the same day with a connection onward to Washington DC. This flight wasn’t acceptable to me, because I’d end up missing a majority of the day on Sunday, so I had them re-book me on a redeye flight through Charlotte, and then onward to DC, getting in about an hour later than my original LAX flight.

But…here’s the thing… that new Seattle to Charlotte to Washington DC flight actually would have caused the entire ticket to go down by about $150. I went to AA.com and search as if I was buying a new ticket, and, sure enough, the new ticket would have saved me $150.

So, I had two options: Either change to this new flight “free of charge” due to the schedule change, OR… the better option… cancel the entire ticket and re-book at the lower fare. I knew I wanted the new flights regardless, so, in the process, I might as well have saved myself $150.

It’s a lesson to be learned. When there’s a dramatic schedule change in your flight on the part of the airline, and you’re offered an alternative set of flights: Before you accept the change, look at what it would be to price out the whole itinerary again. If it’s cheaper, you’re well within your right to cancel the first ticket and re-book onto the new one.