I talked the other day about the dangers of booking connecting flights on different airlines. Several commenters shared horror stories of why this is not a great idea, as well as some helpful suggestions. Some examples:
Due to 30-minute late Uber pickup, missed AA metal PNR (BA Avios)), which caused me to miss Iberia transatlantic (Iberia Avios) award. Iberia would not waive the “24 hour cancellation clause”, which cased me to forfeit 40K Avios or re-book as a dummy, then cancel later but within 24 hours of departure. I tried to play the “OneWorld” partnership, which got me nowhere with Iberia.
One thing I like to do is fly in very early in the morning (like 6am or 7 am flight) and just camp out in the lounge and work all day (helps if you have a job you can do from anywhere).
At the very least I book 1 or 2 flights before the last one that could get me to my destination. This really worked out on my last trip from ORD-HEL (On Finnair) which departed at 10pm. I was at a client site during the day, so couldn’t do my normal 6 am departure plan, but I took a flight that left DCA at 3 PM (on United) with the last flight that got me to my destination was at 5 or 6 PM. My 3 PM flight was delayed 2 hours and the 6 PM flight was canceled! Good thing I took the flight I did.
My Delta flight
I shared my story – I have a 9pm business class flight leaving Boston going to Dublin, to start my awesome European vacation
In looking at the options to get from Cincinnati to Boston, I ended up booking a Delta nonstop leaving CVG at 4pm getting to BOS at 6:05pm. If all goes according to plan, that will give me 3 hours in Boston (where as a business class passenger, I can enjoy the Aer Lingus lounge). But everyone’s horror stories that they shared in my recent post about connecting flights on different airlines had me a bit worried, so I was pleased to see this in my email.
My 4pm flight has been MOVED UP 2 hours! Now it leaves at 2:05pm and gets into Boston at 4:09pm, which gives me 7 hours or so if things go wrong with my 2pm destination. Though hopefully everything will work out fine and we’ll have plenty of time to relax for our vacation!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
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