ARE WE LOSING OUT IN VEGAS SWITCH?
Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder
Q I’m travelling to Las Vegas in May. I booked flights and hotel through an agent. American Airlines has brought forward our flight home by three hours to 6.55am. We will have to get up in the middle of the night for the flight home. So effectively we will lose the last night of our holiday. Are we entitled to change our return flight free of charge? Do we need to contact the airline direct or the agent?
Karen T
A Your flight home is via Chicago, where you connect to a flight leaving at 6.35pm. Evidently American
Airlines has cancelled its 10.15am departure, and you have been rebooked on a very early service at 6.55am. What puzzles me is that there is a later flight, with plenty of availability at 11.51am, which gets you to Chicago O’Hare 56 minutes before your transatlantic flight. Given that you will be in the American Airlines terminal, this should be a comfortable connection. So ask your travel agent if you can be re-booked on this departure instead. It is responsible for representing your interests.
If the agent can’t or won’t arrange a change to the later flight, then allow to me to offer a couple of words of encouragement. The minimum check-in time for your flight from Las Vegas to Chicago is 45 minutes before departure. So you can happily plan to arrive just before 6am. And because most hotels in Las Vegas are so close to the airport, a 5.30am departure by cab will be quite sufficient.
The bonus of getting the early flight: you’ll have six hours between flights at Chicago. With your luggage all checked through for the international leg, you can breeze into the city and explore: shopping on North Michigan Avenue, or immersing yourself in the Art Institute of Chicago. The efficient Metro system takes 45 minutes between the city and the airport and costs $10 for an all-day unlimited travel pass. So the (mis)connection will provide a way to sample the city.
Every day, our travel correspondent, Simon Calder, tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder