TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Check Your Flights/DO NOT Rely on email Notifications

It has been mentioned many times and currently being discussed on the AA thread but one needs to be vigilant in checking their flights.

I went through the same things others have with AA and schedule changes/flight cancellations and an itinerary that required an overnight and received NO notification. Yes, I had email notification set up in my AA account. Yes, I checked my spam folder and no AA was not blocked from sending me emails. I found out only by checking myself. Cancelled that mess of an itinerary and booked with Delta.

Received email confirmation of my booking with Delta on May 2 and thought all was well. Sometime in June or July I checked my flights with Delta and found some minor schedule changes but again, NO notification and I had it set up. I then spent 2-3 hours between talking with Delta and my internet service provider over the non-existent emails. They insisted on blaming each other so that went nowhere other than me wasting my time. I was even unable to email myself a receipt or itinerary from the Delta site to my internet provider email but I could email it to a yahoo account. Since yahoo email would allow this I then changed my notifications to yahoo email and guess what? Another schedule and equipment change within the last 2 weeks this time and NO notification again. While the schedule change is minimal the equipment change is not and results in a different seat configuration that changed our seats to where they are not together. I only found this second change by checking myself.

What prompted me checking again was my wife recently flew Delta and I received a customer satisfaction survey by email to the same email address I had registered with Delta that nothing else was coming though on.

I only have personal experience with AA and Delta of late but I would remind everyone to regularly check your flights yourself and do NOT rely on the airline to notify you. You may be in for a surprise if relying solely on airline notification.

Good advise. No airline is reliable for notifications all the time but I must say Alaska Airlines has been very good with all my domestic flights. Wish they flew to SXM.

JD--I never get notice of flight changes, from any airline. Were you and Ronalee on two different reservations? As otherwise, they should be linked and the seats should have been changed together. Are you in Delta Comfort ?

I found out in order to link reservations with AA you have to do that over the phone. Not sure about Delta but Alaska Air you can do it online.

If they were booked together, they should have been automatically linked though. Allegedly you can't call Jet Blue and get them to link reservations, as they say that they can't do it. I have called AA to link reservations before.

To me all airlines should make linking reservations available online. We link ours when we are traveling to SXM with another couple that made their own reservations with the same itinerary. Just a hassle having to call to do it.

Well, I think we all agree that airlines SHOULD do a lot of things that they don't do..

So true. No argument there.

I made our SXM reservations together and they appear to be linked but no notifications on the two changes of the schedule and the equipment change. The survey she received from Delta was from her recent flight to NC but I was surprised it came to my email since nothing else made it.

The seats were changed on the equipment change but not together, as in side by side like originally booked. I can go in and change the seats without any problem. We are NOT in Delta Comfort as it was not within a reasonable price range when I booked and it is now sold out according to what I see. Traveling down on a Thursday and there are only about 12 seats shown as open and the price from DAY is just under $1800pp for main cabin if booked now. I was going to book Comfort for the ATL-SXM leg if it was reasonable but it was not.

BTW, the equipment change is actually a nice upgrade from an older MD-88 to a Boeing 737-800 (NOT MAX) from DAY to ATL but I am a little concerned as it will be the only 737 in and out of DAY and it takes place the night prior to our departure. This flight comes in late, overnights in DAY and goes back to ATL early the next morning. Hopefully the airport has the proper equipment to handle the change.

OK, hope you have no problems!

Thanks but you know my history with flights to SXM!

That's true..

I had a similar experience last week, with United. We try to stay away from AA and rarely get decent prices out of GRR, but found good prices 4 months ago for January 2-14 through Newark. The better 1/2 was hearing stories about flight changes and checked our status, only to discover that United scrapped our flight from Grand Rapids to Newark, and no notification. When I called to fix this mess they wanted to put me on a late afternoon flight to Newark and did not offer to change our late morning flight to SXM! We ended up leaving New Years afternoon to stay overnight and kept the same 2nd leg. Cost us a night's hotel stay, but we did not have to change room and car reservations and I did not lose a day of our SXM vacation. Don't trust any airlines.

I assume you know that you could have just cancelled and gotten your money back? I assume though that with a flight so close to New Years', that you had virtually no choice..