So before I get into my story, let me just first say that I understand that traveling during the current COVID-19 pandemic is somewhat of a hot topic and that many people have strong opinions on travel during the pandemic or even the pandemic itself. I am a believer that COVID-19 is a real thing and that you can take steps such as mask-wearing and social distancing in order to contain its spread.
I believe that travel can be done responsibly, but that you should be careful about it and think twice about your trip. As I have already mentioned, our family of 8 took a driving / Airbnb trip to Upper Michigan last month. I felt that we were no more in danger nor contributing to the spread of COVID on that trip then I would have had we been here in Ohio. Some commenters disagreed.
I urge you that if you do travel, please do so responsibly and take care to wear a mask (not a chin strap!) while in the airport and on the airplane. Do not be one of “those” people who gets kicked off your flight and/or banned from the airline
Our trip to Portland
Anyways…with all that being said, my son and I have a trip planned to Portland Oregon. As many of you know, my family and I are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and many members of the church choose to serve 2-year missions for the church. My son recently applied to serve a mission and was called to serve in the Oregon Portland Mission.
For a while, we were not quite sure if a mission would be in the cards, or what that might look like. The Church is being very conservative with the health of the missionaries, and what they are or are not allowed to do. In addition, many missionaries from the US who were called to foreign missions were brought home back in March / April and reassigned domestically.
For example, the two missionaries that are currently serving in our area of Cincinnati were originally called to and serving in Cameroon and Jamaica. Different missions are in different “phases” of reopening, with different restrictions. The missionaries here in Ohio, for example, are now allowed to visit people as long as masks are worn and 6 feet of distance is upheld.
The Missionary Training Center in Utah, where my son would normally attend for 3 weeks before going to Oregon, is closed indefinitely, and all training is being done virtually. The Church Travel department would provide us a ticket to Oregon, but I am planning on traveling out to Oregon with him so would prefer to book the two tickets myself and be reimbursed.
The initial schedule
Originally, I booked us on a Southwest flight that left Cincinnati on a Tuesday afternoon, arriving in Portland around 11 p.m. PDT with a connection in Denver. He is supposed to report to the Portland mission office on Wednesday, so I figured that gave us plenty of time.
Itinerary changed
A few weeks later, I got an email that my schedule had been changed. Now, instead of connecting in Denver, we would be connecting in Chicago Midway. And instead of arriving super late, we would get there Tuesday by noon. That would give us most of the day on Tuesday to acclimate and hang out together before he reported on Wednesday.
All in all, an ideal schedule change.
But then…. the time-traveling?
But then the other day, I was in the process of converting our Southwest travel funds to points. And I noticed that my itinerary looked weird. Instead of it saying “Trip to Portland”, it said “Trip to Chicago”. And when I clicked through, it gave me the following schedule
Ummmm….that’s going to be tricky to make. Now instead of a normal one-way from CVG-MDW-PHX, it appears that Southwest has converted it into an open jaw originating and returning to Chicago. All fine and good except a) there is no way to get from Portland to Cincinnati in 4 hours and b) I don’t live in Chicago ;-). Or maybe I should leave Cincinnati at 4:25 p.m., time travel, and arrive in Portland at noon?
It appears that Southwest has eliminated all but that 4:25 flight from Cincinnati to Chicago. Whereas back in the “good old” days, Southwest operated 5 or 6 daily flights between Cincinnati and Chicago, now there is only one. I mean, I totally get it – air travel has been decimated and airlines are kind of making up schedules as they go.
What concerns me most is that, as far as I can tell, I was given no notice of this change whatsoever. Not to mention the fact that this itinerary is literally impossible. I’m travel-savvy enough that I will figure this out, but what about Joe Random Traveler? He shows up to the Cincinnati airport at 8 a.m. only to be told that his flight does not exist?!?
Now what?
Well, checking for flights to Cincinnati and Portland on Southwest gives an error message.
It does look possible to stitch together some 2 or 3 stop itineraries from Cincinnati to Portland, but I don’t know if they would be valid itineraries. I plan on calling Southwest a little later in the day to see what they say but I can’t imagine they will be able to help. Thankfully, Southwest has a great cancellation policy (and then I can convert the travel funds back to points!).
Southwest was really our preferred airline in this case because a) they are blocking middle seats and b) they have 2 free checked bags. I’ve also looked into Frontier which has a flight (and I’m an elite member so get free seats and checked bags).
Have you ever had an itinerary changed on you like this? Share your experience in the comments
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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 
Yup — every week my flights changed up until the day of the flight. Sometimes they will cancel due to light loads. Doesn’t matter the airline either and there doesn’t seem to be any notice.
… and let’s not even go into seat assignments. Traveling is going to be like this for atleast the rest of the year so i’m staying grounded as much as I can.
Sure – I expect that, given all the craziness that is going on with airline schedules. I just wasn’t expecting them to change me into a literally impossible itinerary!
Well not as bizarre as yours. But about 10 years ago, planned a trip from IAH Houston to Butte via Salt Lake City on Delta points. Butte was about equidistant to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, trip was to visit both. Initially the connection was about an hour in SLC. Then, a week before leaving, I get an email from Delta changing the return flight to include about a 6 hour wait at SLC, arriving IAH just before midnight. Called them and at least they fixed it to about a 90 minute connection.
Neither of these stories is quite as exciting, but…
My wife is going to have surgery soon. So 2 of her sisters were planning on visiting during her recovery period.
One of them had a redeye scheduled (on Delta) from SLC via ATL. Delta cancelled the redeye, so moved her SLC departure up 8 hours (to 3:30pm). They did not, however, change the second leg, so now she is scheduled to spend the night in ATL. Unfortunately, she can’t get off work early enough to make the earlier flight, so had to delay the departure until the next morning. And no email to let her know that the flight had changed.
The other one had a flight scheduled on Southwest. After (probably) the same flight adjustments that caught Dan, there were no return flights available for her. We looked into making similar adjustments (and then calling Southwest to see if they could make it happen), but she ultimately decided to change airlines instead. At least she got an email informing her of the issue.