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So I booked a direct flight Northwest Airlines and now they have discontinued it and put me on an earlier flight that adds 7 hours to my travel. Do you think they'll upgrade me? It's an international flight that requires sitting in a gosh darn plane for 20 hours so being upgrade would be nice! Any travel agents here or someone who has experience with this?

My experience with Northwest is that they don't do anything to help out.

Last time this happened to me:

1) They didn't tell me about it (it was my connecting flight) until I got to the airport. Not my HOME airport...after I was off the plane for the connection.
2) They didn't do anything but send me out to the terminal to wait (in a foreign country)
3) The new flight was 12 hours later.
4) I was with my 5-months pregnant wife.
5) There was nowhere in the airport to sit.

Did you book this through a travel agent or did you do it yourself? The reason I ask is that in my experience, my travel agent is able to find alternatives to what the automated system gives and then she's able to get the airline to switch me to the better schedule. If you did it yourself, I guess you are on your own and unless you have miles and are booked in the right class of service, you won't get an upgrade.

The Lost Manatee wrote:Did you book this through a travel agent or did you do it yourself? The reason I ask is that in my experience, my travel agent is able to find alternatives to what the automated system gives and then she's able to get the airline to switch me to the better schedule. If you did it yourself, I guess you are on your own and unless you have miles and are booked in the right class of service, you won't get an upgrade.

Even if you do it yourself, you do not have to accept the flight they give you if you find a better one that fits your schedule -I'm not a travel agent but I have to book alot of travel for my boss & his family & if his flight gets cancelled & they re-book him -I check for better flights & call them -never have a problem, unless of course there isn't a better one.

Spent all day making a stink and at first they said I had to accept their out of the way flight. Now I have an offer of a full refund. Might go this route because I've found the same itinerary for $200 cheaper then when I bought it. Of course the airline won't just reimburse me for the difference because that would be too easy. I'm still holding out on the miniscule chance they upgrade me, but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen. They would rather just refund my money it seems.

fabduo wrote:

The Lost Manatee wrote:Did you book this through a travel agent or did you do it yourself? The reason I ask is that in my experience, my travel agent is able to find alternatives to what the automated system gives and then she's able to get the airline to switch me to the better schedule. If you did it yourself, I guess you are on your own and unless you have miles and are booked in the right class of service, you won't get an upgrade.

Even if you do it yourself, you do not have to accept the flight they give you if you find a better one that fits your schedule -I'm not a travel agent but I have to book alot of travel for my boss & his family & if his flight gets cancelled & they re-book him -I check for better flights & call them -never have a problem, unless of course there isn't a better one.

Agreed, travel agents are worth their weight in gold, particularly if you are traveling on a tight schedule where appointments may change around, or if you are going a long way from home, where there may not be many flights.