BA rerouting after AA domestic flight changes

[AndrewT]

I’m looking for some advice in recovering a slightly convoluted BA Holidays trip in April, which AA have successfully broken by rescheduling all five of their flights. Bear with me, this may take a while.

As booked the plan was:
Outbound: LHR – JFK (AM), JFK – LAX (PM), LA overnight, LAX – HNL (AM).
Return: HNL – LAX (PM), LAX – JFK (overnight A321T with flat bed), JFK – LHR (daytime).

The two primary objectives are to tick Hawaii off the bucket list and accumulate 1680TP along the way, earning two full years of Gold status from a single trip.

AA’s schedule tinkering means the PM HNL – LAX flight now fails to make the overnight Transcon to JFK. There are two other HNL – LAX flights, 0600 (way too early in the day) and 2139 (overnight in a seat). I discounted routes back via PHX and SEA in the original planning as both involve an undesirable overnight. AA are not offering any short hops via other Hawaiian islands to reach LAX earlier in the evening.

Option 1 is fairly straightforward. HNL – LAX (PM), LA overnight, LAX – JFK (daytime), JFK – LHR (overnight).

Q1: Will BA / BAH pay for the hotel in LA for an enforced overnight connection, or will they claim that the 0600 or 2139 flights from HNL are reasonable alternatives (even though they aren’t to me)?

Option 2 is more creative, and also more convoluted. There is a potentially attractive overnight HNL – DFW 787 which may be available. The problem is that DFW – JFK is only 40TP, reducing the trip total to an extremely irritating 1480TP. While the airlines don’t care about that, I do. Interestingly the AA website offers several Dallas – East Coast one-stop routes, via MIA, CLT, ORD and even LAX. However the BA Multi City and (usually more flexible) BAH Custom Trip tools don’t offer most of them.

The best (or least worst) option I’ve found through BA with BA flight numbers is DFW – CLT – PHL – LHR. That is logically all heading in the same direction, gives the desired 1500+TP and has the added reassurance of multiple flights on each leg.

Q2: Given the broken connection in LA, should BA / BAH be willing to reroute via DFW, with or without the more creative options thereafter?

I will have to call to rebook, but I’d like to go prepared with some options that I know work for me. Given that I’m not concerned about overall travel time, have I missed any other permutations?

[trevor]

Decide what suits you best and then try and get it accepted by BA. I check availability by putting the flights in the multi city routing as a one way. It also shows the BA code share number if there is one, which I use when rescheduling.

My April trip to LAX was also impacted by AA cancellations. I thought it risky to rely on original routing credit post flights, so I came up with an alternative routing that maintained the tier point earning level I originally booked.

I had my preferred routing ready having checked availability beforehand on the BA website. I contacted BA via chat. After politely declining being booked on the more direct routing, (which I would have loved to accept) the assistant checked and then booked the flights I provided.

It took about 45 minutes from start of chat to receiving the email confirmation of changes. The assistant was very proficient. I prefer online chat to the phone as it’s in writing and I can save a copy of the transcript.

I think it unlikely you will get an overnight hotel paid for by the airline if you choose a routing with an overnight connection. My original routing had an overnight connection and I was paying for the hotel.

[Garethgerry]

Does the keep my orginal tier points and avios rules if rerouted apply. If so choose most convenient and don’t worry about tier points avios

[Tocsin]

Original routing credit only applies to disruption on the day, so pre-planned re-routing still needs to consider avios/TP.

As a BA Holiday, the double TP bit can be argued over if there are no BA codeshares available on some of the re-route.

[AndrewT]

I think original routing credit also applies if you get rebooked on a different carrier in advance, but I agree I don’t think it would apply here and wouldn’t want to risk a protracted debate with BA about it afterwards.

Either way the two obvious routes are HNL – LAX – LHR (now requiring an overnight stop or 0600 departure) or HNL – DFW – LHR (requiring a reroute). As the latter involves a 10 hour or so connection, I might as well spend that time sitting on a couple of extra flights if I can

[Matt]

For Q2, yes you should be able to change your routing to something at least as sensible as what you initially booked, which should include routing via DFW I’d have thought.

[James C]

I personally would look to do option 1. I’ve done the red eye LAX to JFK a few times and it’s a very short flight eastwards (c4.5 hrs) so little chance of decent sleep. You’re also crossing 11 time zones from HNL to LHR which is pretty painful so a full night’s sleep in a hotel bed is your friend here.

I assume you must be doing some BA flying to get the value from your Gold membership so is it really that important to get 1500TPs from one trip? You will need 2 other BA/ IB revenue fares to qualify for Gold in addition to this trip.

The other thing to watch if you do look at DFW is BA codeshares as not all of the AA options you find connecting out of DFW will have one and you need a BA number for double tier points.

[AndrewT]

Thanks for the input re the LA stop. My system happily copes with West Coast to UK, but I appreciate this is a major step further.

Yes I’d noticed that AM eastbound flights out of DFW are not codeshares, but would only need 20TP so could live with that.

AA flights with BA numbers are eligible from a status perspective, so that’s covered. While the Gold in one trip element is largely psychological, it’s timed to follow on after my current Gold card expires on March 31st, and I missed out on renewing due to the transition year changes.