Greetings,
Well, I finally got blindsided by an airline schedule change. I booked our May flights to Italy WAY in advance, back in August 2016. We're flying Aer Lingus from Chicago to Dublin/Dublin to Venice, returning from Rome. Over the months, I periodically signed into Aer Lingus and double-checked for any changes, but also assumed I'd be notified if something was rescheduled. I'd gotten an email early on that one of our flight schedules had changed by five minutes.
I don't recall how long it had been since I checked in, but it had probably been a couple of months, and I'd gotten no notifications. After perusing a recent forum thread about bidding on upgrades, I thought I'd take a look on Aer Lingus. I signed in, and did a double-take when I saw our itinerary, which now showed that we were flying from Dublin to Venice on both May 18 and 19. I was also unable to check any other information on our flights. Confused, I called Aer Lingus.
I was just about to give up after being on hold with a horrendous, static-filled music track for about 30 minutes when a very nice woman with just a touch of an Irish accent answered. We determined that our May 18 flight to Venice had been canceled and they had moved us to the May 19 flight. (Only one flight per day from Dublin to Venice, which I'd realized well after booking. My bad.)
Why was the flight canceled? The very nice, helpful person at Aer Lingus didn't have that information. More importantly, why wasn't I notified? The very nice, helpful person also didn't know, but she was quite dismayed and apologetic about that. If I'd know about it a couple of months ago, I probably could have taken advantage of lower fares and booked with another airline. But a quick search showed that fares were now higher than what I'd booked in August. So what to do?
Option A: Accept the change and spend the day in Dublin, as in starting a day in Dublin at 5:30 a.m., jet-lagged and hoping that nothing went wrong with the May 19 flight, as our RS tour begins that afternoon.
Option B: Fly from Dublin to Milan on May 18, then spend 2 to 3 hours traveling by train to Venice, arriving late afternoon/evening, exhausted and jet-lagged with less time in Venice than planned.
Option C: Move the whole trip back a day, leaving Chicago May 16, arriving in Venice May 17, ending up with an extra full day in Venice. Also, if something else happens with our flights, we have more time to roll with the punches and still get to Venice in time for our tour.
No surprise, probably, we chose Option C. So we have an extra day in Venice, darn it all. ;-)
The lesson, of course, as others on this forum have emphasized, is to check that itinerary often, as flights change and notifications don't always come as they should. Things happen. Take a breath, stay calm, figure out your options and move on.
I ended up speaking with two Aer Lingus representatives, one on the first day when I was trying to find out what had happened, and a second the next day when I called back to make the necessary changes. I can't say enough how pleasant and accommodating both of them were. They were models of excellent customer service, friendly and helpful.
But they do need to do something about the awful scratchy hold music.
Cheers!