TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Just Need to Rant For A Minute

Have a trip scheduled for mid February. This will be our first trip back in 3 years so REALLY looking forward to it.

Our flights were Portland to JFK and connecting to SXM. Just got a notice from Delta that our flight out of New York has been moved from JFK to LaGuardia (with a 45 minute window between flights). Obviously, we can't change airports in NY in 45 minutes. Soooo, we'll just get on the phone with Delta and see what we can do. Simple, right? Not so much as it turns out. We have been trying for 3 days to reach them to no avail. The latest wait time we endured was just over 3 hours before we finally gave up.

We have talked so much on this forum about the hassle of getting to the island (testing, etc.) but this is maddening. My wife is so frustrated, we're talking about just cancelling and trying again in 2023. Hopefully by then the airlines will have their act together. BTW, we used Capital One points for the tickets so not easy to just change airlines.

Not really looking for a solution............just appreciate being able to blow off some steam with fellow island travelers. Arrrrrrrg........................

I have found calling prior to 7:00am eastern time to be a good time to get through to the airlines. Good luck.

We head down in two weeks. We had a somewhat similar problem with Delta, the switched our flight down from baltimore-jfk-sxm to baltimore-atlanta- sxm. When I called, I was told 4 hours 19 minutes wait time, I stayed on the line, 2 hours later I got connected to the nicest young lady who took great care of us. I recommend patience.

My suggestion would be come in the night before. Stay at the TWA near Terminal 5, then get up rested to take the Delta direct. How on earth do they think you could make that connection?? We’re both legs booked together?

Delta is not easy to get in contact with, I have used the call back option but be prepared to get a call back at anytime. I had a call back at 2am and then they had me on hold an additional 30 minutes before someone came on the phone.

We've talked about going down the night before. One of the mitigating factors is we are traveling with another couple who may not have the flexibility we do. Also looking at flying through another connecting city.

We'll try the early morning suggestion and see if that helps. We've been trying pretty much every time of day.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Probably being Captain Obvious here but...can you just change the flight yourself? Assuming (I know) there IS another decent flight available the change/cancel link at the top of the Delta webpage worked for me last year. If there isn't another appropriate flight then that's what you would be told anyway after waiting ....doesn't sound good. Portland Oregon or Maine?

I would use the call back option or make changes online yourself.

My question is the same as boucharda's: Oregon or Maine? I know you said changing airlines isn't that easy with points, but I am pretty happy with American out of Portland, Oregon. Sure, they change the flights pretty often but are always accommodating and pleasant if I need to make a change to their change.

Oregon or Maine doesn't really matter... I checked quite a few days in February and could not find a direct to SXM from LGA. I obviously could have missed one but all connected through ATL and most were overnights

Maybe a shot in the dark but look for an out of county number for the airlines.
When we had to get a flight off of SXM before Irma my wife could not get through on usual number,
our concierge gave her the out of country number and got through immediately

Have patience and it will all be worth it once you arrive in SXM

Flights from the west coast often don't work out, either way because of loosing time going east and flights leaving so late out of SXM plus customs going west. Plan to miss connections and staying over night and then you are happy and surprised when it actually works.