“I missed my entire trip because my plane was delayed”

What I don’t get is why he didn’t just book a non-stop flight from LAX to Boston? I wouldn’t want to rely on a connecting flight to get to a big trip like that. Last time I took a connecting flight I ended up in Dulles for 8 hours because my first flight was delayed and I missed my connection.

Everytime people book reservations themselves that are not “linked” and there’s a problem, people seem to have big troubles.

I suppose it would be nice if somebody would offer insurance for something like that, but maybe they don’t because it can happen too easily and passengers should take heed.

I have become very over cautious about connecting to overseas flights and have often scheduled an overnight stay in the outbound city just to be sure nothing can go wrong. Certainly, I enjoy the short visit as much as I can too. After sitting in the Newark airport all day in constant phone contact with my daughter who was flying from Atlanta, an airport notorious for bad weather, who tried every flight from the first one she was scheduled on at 7 am until the one which she finally got on and was able to take off at 3:30 pm – the last one she could be on and still connect to our 28 hour Air India flight to Mumbai via Paris, allowing for an extra city visit while traveling has been a priority.
Traveling used to be at a slower and more gracious pace. At least for my vacation travel, I am trying to remember that is simply may not be possible or desirable to race around the globe all in one continuous motion. A pause along the way allows for a catch up if things go array or a quick visit to a city not just a dash through an airport.

The first line of this blog entry should be, “Glen Segal’s first mistake was not using a travel agent on a somewhat complicated international trip.”

There are four things that stand out to me that a competent travel agent would have done for Glen. 1) Ideally, Glen’s ticket from Orange County to Boston would have been part of his package so he didn’t fall into this no-man’s-land where AA did their job (eventually) and it certainly isn’t Icelandair’s fault. 2) If that wasn’t possible (or was cost-prohibitive) any agent worth their salt would have strongly advised against a 50 minute layover in a large airport on the way to an international flight. 3) Even if there was no way for Glen to make his Icelandair flight (and since his schedule was so tight, he didn’t have a whole lot of options), an agent would have worked with Icelandair to get him on the flight the next day (there’s a flight every day of the week but Saturday). And finally… 4) It sounds like the insurance package purchased wasn’t appropriate for the trip, and an agent could have helped chose more comprehensive coverage.

Unfortunately, the traveler in this instance made a number of poor decisions which resulted in him missing a trip – decisions that a competent and knowledgeable travel agent would have advised him against. Ultimately, AA, Icelandair and Access America all gave him exactly what he purchased.

People try to save on booking on separate tickets resulting in connection, taking luggage and rechecking to another airlines. It’s an acrobatic manoeuvring with all today security and cuts of service, not counting the weather factor. For me 24hours connecting is not even enough. At the end not a real saving. Glen pay already 2 insurance policies. Plus all the stress.

After being critical of TAs in my last few comments, this situation could have easily been avoided with a competent Travel Agent. After all, this issue is hardly new. There are numerous stories about people missing cruise ships because the flight to MIA or FLL was “delayed.” How many times have we heard “If you book your own air arrangements, leave PLENTY of TIME between connections?” In today’s day, booking unlinked reservations (air to air) is really risky. I rarely do it anymore because the cost savings aren’t there to justify the potential hassels. There are times that it is still worth it (ie east coast to LAX/SFL, then LAX/SFO to HNL/OGG versus east coast to HNL for example) Often on an unlinked reservation, I will budget in an extra day and use it to sightsee in the connecting city (note, this adds a hotel room into the budget). I do this understanding the risks and hold my breath that I don’t miss my connecting flight! Unfortunately, I don’t think the majority of the public understands this!

To all the TAs that are reading this, I’m pretty sure a competent TA would have found a similar package (if not better) from SNA (or LAX) to Iceland for about the same costs. And to shell out close to $3000, (original package + flight from SNA to BOS), to not hire an agent seems risky.

It is unclear why he had to miss his whole trip; were there just no more flights available to Iceland? In any case, I can’t feel sorry for him at all. If you pay $2600 for a nonrefundable vacation, why on earth would you allow less than an hour–in a very busy airport where you might have to change terminals (a 20-minute process–to make your connecting flight? I have had tight connections for domestic flights, but an overseas itinerary requires a lot more extra time just in case something happens.

Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb and be thought of as stupid. But what is a linked reservation, and what benefits does it confer? I Googled the phrase and can’t find an answer relating to air travel. Much thanks.

In addition to connection guarantees, a linked ticket or Interline agreement, also provide provisions for baggage transfers, etc. In this situation, if the tickets were linked, the passenger could have done passport check at SNA, and his baggage would have been transferred from SNA straight to REK. As previously mentioned, he could have been screwed even without the delay as he would have to claim his luggage at Logan, then re-check in with Iceland Air on the flight to REK. That whole process can take at least 4 hours or longer (especially on the way back when he would have to clear customs).

Carriers like Southwest have NO interline agreements with the “legacy” carriers, so these tickets will always be “unlinked.” Booking 2 tickets independently can also cause problems if there is involuntary rerouting.

Part of the problem comes from the airline pricing structures. In my previous post, it is not uncommon to find $200 RT fares between east coast and west coast, and a $200-300 RT ticket from west coast to Hawaii. Yet, booking the SAME flights as one ticket may cost 1.5 to 2X the cost of booking the separate itineraries. In the ticket rules, it states whether the fares can be “combined” or not, and sometimes it is not.

Ultimately it is a balance between convenience and cost savings. I will say that I once saved $700 by splitting a ticket that could not be linked. It was an international ticket. I had to factor in 2 long layovers in London (a 12 hour layover) and ont he way back had to go form LHR to LGW (so I stayed the night).

@ Jeanne, look up “Interline agreement” (its not the same as Codeshare)

The other point Chris makes that is overlooked… Packages aren’t always the better bargain. I have frequently found better deals by booking airfare and hotels separately.

Living in Orange County (SNA) and traveling to the East Coast (EWR) for a Reunion every 5 years, a pivot at ORD, DFW, or DEN is required. The Reunion starts at 7:00 PM Thursday. We travel on Wednesday and book a hotel along Route 1 in New Jersey. The price of an extra night’s stay is well worth it instead of possiblly missing part of the Reunion, for which we paid an all inclusive fee. Normally we arrive at the hotel about 8:00 PM. The reason we stay near New Brunswick is the hotel prices around Princeton are substantially jacked up during the Reunions and it saves about $100 not to stay in Princeton Wednesday and Sunday nights. I cannot believe someone that clueless about the possibility of a fatal delay.
A few years ago I had a project at Keflavik NAS and left LAX at about 8:AM, changed to Iceland Air at JFK arriving Keflavik about 5:AM GMT the day before starting my assignment.

At the time, I did not think I had such a tight connection, since I had never had problems before in DFW with even shorter time contraints. True, I only fly like two or three times a year, so I may not be a well-traveled as others on this board. Turns out, this time I landed in Terminal C and had to take the Skytrain to Terminal A. Did not know I would have to do that until we got the gate announcements while we were sitting on the tarmac. Never had to do that before at DFW. Now I realize that I actually had a tight connection and should have booked a non-stop from LAX or flown the night before. But hindsight is 20-20. AA booked me on the next flight to Boston at DFW, after checking other airlines. I was told by the AA counter agent the best I can do on any airline would be for AA to get me into Boston on their 4:50 p.m. flight, landing at 9:30 p.m., with the hope the 9:30 p.m. Icelandair flight was delayed. The rebooked flight kept getting pushed back so that it did not pull back from the gate until 7:15 p.m., but we did not actually take off until 8:00 p.m. because of a “broken tow.” I landed in Boston after midnight and was able to retrieve my luggage and checked into the Logan Airport Hilton at close to 1 a.m.

You also do not know that I tried to contact Icelandair while I was stuck at DFW. I e-mailed them, called their North American number and their main number. (No response to my e-mail until the following Wednesday.) Both phone numbers had recorded messages saying that their phone hours are between 9 am to 12 noon. Called Icelandair from Boston Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Was told the only thing they could do for me was to show up at the ticket counter that night for the 9:30 p.m. flight (only one flight per day) and see if they can get me on that flight. They could make no guarantee I could get on that flight and no indication I even still had a hotel (I called the main Hilton reservation line while I was in Dallas and they did not see a reservation in my name for the Hilton in Reykjavik, and when I tried to call the hotel directly on my cell phone, I kept getting a recorded message that I cannot make international calls [ATT confirmed that I could make such calls, however--whatever]). The Icelandair phone agent could not even tell me if I were going to have to pay change of flight fees or anything of that sort or whether there were even any available seats. Assuming for the sake of argument that I would have been able to get on the next flight, I still would have lost two of my five days’ worth of excursions (and no guarantee I had a hotel room). Since I did not want to sit around for 8 hours to speak with a ticket counter agent to see IF I could get on the flight, I decided to cancel. I did not want to spend my vacation sitting in an airport. I had AA book me on the next flight back to SNA. Missed the connection in Dallas again. Finally got home late that Sunday night. If this makes me a bonehead, so be it.

With respect to the Access America insurance, the way I read the policy, I do qualify for trip cancellation benefits, but that will have to be hashed out in Small Claims’ court.

Anyway, there are personal reasons why I avoid travel agents that had nothing to do with this trip, but with a travel agent making off with my parents’ money for a Mexican cruise they booked for the entire family 7 years ago. I had to deal with the California Attorney General Office and City of La Palma Police Department on that one for them. Since that time, I have been reluctant to go the travel agent route. Lesson Learned.

Linked tickets are more properly (in this context), called end-on-end tickets. You’re flying A-B-C-B-A, and you buy one round-trip A-B-A, and another round-trip B-C,C-B. You’re essentially matching the “B” end of one ticket with the “B” end of the other ticket, with arrival/departure times such that you can make a “connection at B”. This makes sense when the sum of the fares A-B-A and B-C-B is less than the point-to-point fare A-C-A. I say “connection” in quotes because neither airline views it as a connection unless you’ve got it booked on a single ticket.

If you do this yourself you will have two separate tickets, and in most cases no protection against missed connections; you may also have to schlep your baggage from one carrier to another.

Most carriers and fares, with the exception of some low-cost carriers, allow end-on-end ticketing, which means you can get one ticket A-B-C-B-A, priced A-B-A separately from B-C-B, with through baggage check, through check-in (most of the time), and – very important – the guarantee that the combined carriers will transport you from A to C, not two independent guarantees for A to B and B to C. The latter is what Glen had, and not what he needed. (in his case A was Orange County, B was Boston, C was Reykjavik — DFW was just a connecting point between A and B).

A travel agent (but not any website I know of) can specify that the fares for A-B-A and B-C-B should be calculated separately, AND book this all on one ticket to give you this protection. This often results in a (much) lower fare than if you price the ticket from A-C-A with two different airlines, which is what Expedia, Orbitz, and airline websites would do..

I fly a lot of complex itineraries and book most of them myself, but this is one of the few situations where it is WELL worth the fee to have a travel agent do the ticketing, even if you are very knowledgeable about airfares. I do the research myself and on international itineraries often find much better fares than any travel agent. I often end up telling the travel agent exactly what I want and even how to fare it, but their system can do it and mine can’t, so they get my business.

I’m not defending travel agents generally – some are good, some are bad; the point is that they have the right tool. I once called the American Express Platinum travel desk to book a Chicago-Hong Kong trip and the best business class fare they could find was about $9,000 (this was the point-to-point Chicago-Hong Kong Fare). I’d already found an end-on-end routing (United Chicago-Vancouver, Cathay Pacific Vancouver-Hong Kong) at about $5,200. I ended up in an argument with the agent as to whether end-on-end ticketing was legal (it was, and I won the argument – she didn’t know the difference between end-on-end and back-to-back ticketing, which is very different and IS prohibited by airline rules). I had to escalate to get it done, but I knew the agency had the tool to do end-on-end ticketing, and I didn’t, and it saved me nearly $4,000 (for which I paid a $39 fee). I had to give the agent each segment, the fare code, and tell her how to force the computer to split the fares, but in the end, I got exactly what I wanted at exactly the price I expected, plus $39..

I could have ticketed Chicago-Vancouver and Vancouver-Hong Kong separately on United’s and Cathay’s web site, and gotten the price break, but I absolutely would have missed my return connection through Vancouver, which the $39 fee saved me. The flight from Hong Kong was two hours late, leaving me with just 45 minutes to get off the plane, go through Canadian customs, reclaim my bags, go through US customs, recheck my bags, and get a boarding pass from United – and United’s check-in limit for international flights was 60 minutes before departure, so this was obviously impossible. BUT since I had everything on one ticket, Cathay KNEW that I had a tight connection, and their agents got my United boarding pass even before I landed. They met me at the airplane door, and walked me through the customs procedures so quickly that I made my United flight with time to spare. Had I missed it, I would have been stuck overnight in Vancouver (okay, not the worst punishiment in the world, but this could happen anywhere).

Bottom line: if you are changing carriers enroute, either leave a LOT of time (like a full day) for irregularities, or get it put on a single ticket. If your airline or booking site can’t do that, call a live travel agent who can. Of course, if a low-cost-carrier involved, then a single ticket won’t be a choice because they don’t support interline connections, In that case an overnight hotel room is the best option, and on thin international routes even that may not suffice..

I had the same type of problem except I DID use a live travel agent. AA was extremely late departing Lubbock (over 4 hours) and I ended up missing my connection to Amsterdam which effected my transfer to Nairobi. Calling the travel agent that I had booked the entire trip with, I was told to make waves with the KLM staff since it was not my fault. Bottom line, the travel agent could not/would not make arrangements and told me to hang around Dallas until I could get the same flight out in 7 days. Upon telling the travel agent that this was unacceptable, she said “Its friday night, just what do you expect me to do?” to which I replied “Your job that I paid you to do. Get me to Kenya”. I was forced to rely on the travel agent since KLM would not talk to me as my tickets were purchased by a travel agent and it was up to the agent to make the changes. The travel agent evidently purchased from a consolidator and he was not available to make the changes.

After many phone calls and several hours, my travel agent said she would cancel the trip and refund my money. (which turned out to be not true. I ended up losing over $3000)

Bottom line, I missed my photo safari to Kenya as a result of using a travel agent. The travel agent had also told me that travel insurance was mandatory and purchased it from travel america for me. It turned out that the insurance did not cover missed trips unless I had missed more than 50% so if I had lived in the Dallas airport for the week that the travel agent had wanted me to do, then I could have gotten some compensation. I was not paid for the night I spent in Dallas since American Airlines put me in a hotel for the night.

Strangely enough, American tried to get KLM to release the tickets to them so they could put me on a flight and get me to Kenya. KLM refused. American representatives explained that it was not in (Americans) best intrest to do it since KLM would charge American the full price and AA would have to suck up the difference. Even though KLM would make more money off of it, they refused and I was unable to get any flights without purchasing new tickets. KLM representatives reminded me that all tickets had to be used in order and if I bought a new ticket to Kenya that the return would not be any good so I would have to buy the entire ticket again. I had already shelled out over $7000 for business class tickets and was screwed.

After I returned home and continuing to try to work with the travel agent, I realized that I was not going to get any of my money back. Until I received my printed intinerary 96 hours prior to departure, there was no mention of any part of the trip being non refundable. I ended up disputing the charges for the ground portion of the trip and my card seemed to agree with me but I am still out over $3000 for “used portions of the flight coupons”.

The worthless policy purchased from Travel America was a waste of money although the travel agent assured me it was not only required but the policy needed for the trip.

Had I made my own reservations, KLM would have put me on the next flight, or so their representative told me.

All in all, it was a very expensive lesson on why NOT to use a travel agent. So for those that say an agent could have avoided the problems associated with this persons travel or linking airlines, I say it could and does happen when you use an agent. I have been traveling internationally since 1975. Over the past 5 years, I have made 20 international trips of 30 days or longer and this was the first and only time I used a travel agent for a complicated trip. Its also the first and only time I had trouble working with an airline to get me where I was going. Every problem I encountered could have been avoided had I done my booking myself instead of trusting a “professional’.

Using a travel agent does not always fix problems and there is no way to know which agents are crooks and thieves and which ones are honest until they have cheated you (or not).

I would sooner trust a snake oil salesman than another travel agent.

Glen what makes you a bonehead is NOT refusing to use a travel agent, you really ddin’t ned one for this trip, it is booking a package out of an east coast city living on the west coast and flying a seperate airline, on a seperate ticket across the country. The non bone head way to do this would’ve been to book one of Icelanair’s joint fares (such as with NW via MSP) to KEF. If none of these are routed out of LAX/SNA/BUR/ONT/LGB then option B would’ve been a codesahre fliught to KEF on NW/DL/AF/KL via AMS, AA/BA via LHR, or UA/SK via IAD/ORD/EWR and CPH (SAS even codeshares with Icelandair). Sadly it appears you are about to make the same mistake twice as you still need to get from SNA to SEA on a seperate ticket to meet up with your vacation. In the end you chose what you did because you either did or thought you would save a few bucks, big mistake. Remeber any time you choose based on price you have made the wrong choice. You lost a $2600 vacation to save what? $500, $700? Yeah that worked out well.

@MF, Icelandair probably offers vacation packages only out of their US gateways, not out of any US city. Lots of smaller airlines do so. That’s why you would need a *separate* ticket to get to a gateway of theirs, if you don’t live near one and still want to book a vacation from them.

I’m disappointed in Icelandair here. Having only 3 hours per day when there is a phone representative available and this representative not being able to rebook your missed flight is simply an example of miserable customer service.

Actually, another alternative would be to do JetBlue from LGB to BOS, which is a direct flight and would not require a hub-stop like a flight from SNA would require.

I agree with MF; the big problem is trying to coordinate a package out of an East Coast location when you’re living in the West Coast. Except for those who proposed a 12+ hour (or overnight) stay to avoid missing the flight, a flight delay anywhere in the chain puts the entire thing at risk. I’d like to think that most travel agents would recognize the same problem and either schedule a long layover in the East Coast city (after all, might as well have a day to recover from the cross-country flight, take in some sights, and not be rushed to make an international connection!) or make sure that the flights are linked so that someone takes responsibility.

So, if Glen is reading this, make sure that your SNA to SEA flight has a lot of time before the International segment, or you’re SOL again. I’ve rarely experienced a delay into SEA, but I did get a 3 hour delay in 2008 and almost missed a football playoff game at 1:05pm PST. Who would have knew that a 6am departure from LAX would be heavily delayed because they needed a new crew from Seattle?