Back in 2022, I wrote a post about what to do when you miss your flight or your flight is cancelled or delayed. I recently had a situation where I needed to put these skills into practice, so I thought I’d write about it.
Not a subscriber! Subscribe below!
Setting the Scene
Typically, my wife and I spend some time around Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with her family. Our family is spread out across the country, and, living in DC, we have to make a choice of when we go visit family around the holidays.
My parents had been living in a tiny apartment in Austin, Texas, the past few years. They bought a house just outside of Austin that could finally fit the entire family, so they asked us to come at Christmas time. They wanted to have everyone over, including all the kids, my nieces and nephews, and my grandparents. My mom really wanted to get an updated family picture, and, given my grandparents advanced age (makes it hard to travel) and adopting two kids into the family, that’s a 100% reasonable thing to want! We figured out a plan.
We were able to make the drive down to my wife’s family, and then we would fly down on Christmas Day itself to have Christmas with my family. We were scheduled to leave around 12:45PM and get into Austin just in time so that there was still enough time .
We booked direct flights on Southwest around October, because we decided that we were going to fly down to Austin, spend a few days there, and then fly directly back to DC (while my mother-in-law wanted to drive our car and dog back to DC for a little roadtrip of their own). Southwest is great for these types of trips, because all of their trips are priced one-way, regardless of whether you book roundtrip or as a series of one-way trips. Additionally, while Southwest had had a meltdown at Christmas time 2022, they had promised that they would have new systems in place so that it wouldn’t happen again.
I honestly wasn’t worried about it, because weather events happen, and I highly doubted that there would be such a large issue again related to that.
Points and Miles to the Rescue
Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve, there was intense fog around Chicago Midway, and Southwest ended up cancelling a bunch of flights. I’ll go ahead and state definitively: this was 100% different than the meltdown of 2022, and I think Southwest made the right call. Midway is a major hub for Southwest, so it took them a couple of days to get back up on their feet. I’m sure you can see where this is going.
We woke up on Christmas Day to a text message that stated that our flight had been delayed by an hour. Not the best news, but one to which we could still make it down to Austin for family pictures before it got dark. Being me, I got really anxious about not making it down in time for pictures, as I really wanted my mom to get her pictures. My lovely wife, who has immense patience with me, suggested that I look at alternative flights on another airline to see if there was a flight we could get on earlier to make it. Given Southwest’s generous cancellation policy, I was reminded that we could cancel our Southwest flights if needed and retain that credit for a future flight.
I initially was hesitant to do that (because I didn’t think that there would be any award flights at a reasonable price that day), but my wife told me to at least look.
I pulled up the American Airlines app (I knew they also had a direct flight between Nashville and Austin), and, lo and behold, they had 2 seats available for their 1:15PM flight for 14,500 miles a piece. These were also fully refundable. I booked them, and we went on our way. (Also, listen to your wife.)
The Southwest flight was still booked for 1:45PM, so my plan was to wait until about 11:30AM to see if our Southwest flight would be moved again, because I’d much rather have more American Airlines miles than a Southwest credit. Well, about an hour later, we got another message from Southwest letting us know that our flight had been delayed by another 2 hours (3 hours total), so we decided to cancel our Southwest flight (each of us retaining our credit that never expires) and just fly American Airlines.
As an added bonus, given that I had Platinum Pro status with American at the time (long story, maybe another post), we got upgraded to first class for the 2 hour flight!
We left on time, and, given that we had priority bags due to my status, they were already at baggage claim when we arrived, hopped in the car with my dad, and made it home in time for pictures. We had a lovely few days in London (including a fantastic dinner at the Driskill Grill in downtown Austin), and then flew Southwest home.
Conclusion
We originally had a flight on Southwest, had delays that didn’t work for us, and ended up flying on American. The moral of this story is that, when you have a cancelled flight or delay that just won’t work for you, take a minute, take some deep breaths, and be your own advocate. Know the cancellation policies of your tickets, have a backup plan, and, instead of waiting for someone else at the airline to help you, be your own advocate.
The technology and self-service the airlines are capable of doing have come a long way, and, given the interconnectedness of many routes, you are often able to make back-up plans at the last minute, particularly for those important life events.
Has this ever happened to you? What would you have done in this situation?