What To Do When You Miss A Flight: A blog about redeeming miles for a trip.

Here’s what happened: Our plane left at 9pm, and I thought the boarding time was 8:30pm. I was wrong. It was 8:40pm. We missed our plane by 10 minutes.

I called British Airways, and they said they would put us on the next flight – which was 24 hours later due to a cancellation.

So what do you do in this situation?

We called up British Airways again, and we got through to a very helpful customer service agent named Yvonne. She told us that we should get to the airport anyway because there might be room on the flight for us (even though it was full). She gave us the gate agents number, and we went up to the airport.

When we arrived at the airport, the gate agent said that she could not get us on that night’s flight but that she could put us on standby for tomorrow’s flight. We asked if there was a hotel room available for us, and she said that we could have one on her if it would help our case to get onto tomorrow’s flight.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get on tomorrow’s flight either (it

What To Do When You Miss A Flight

A blog about redeeming miles for a trip.

This is my 12th trip of the year, and I’m writing this as I sit in the departure lounge at LAX, waiting for a flight to Hong Kong on American Airlines.

My first trip of the year was in February; a last minute award booking to Kuala Lumpur with United Mileage Plus miles. I booked that one two days before I left, and used my newly acquired Star Alliance Gold status to get into the United Club at SFO (since closed). Later that year I flew another last minute award trip with United, this time to New Zealand on Air New Zealand business class.

When you’re on a trip and miss a flight because of mechanical problems, weather delays or just something that’s out of your control, there’s not much to do. You don’t really have any options except to stand in line at the airport and try to get a new flight.

However, when you’re missing a flight because of something you did (or didn’t do) it can be a whole different ballgame. If you know what to do, and you have the right airline credit card (or other travel credit card), you can end up with a free ticket and maybe even some miles for your trouble.

I had an experience like this with American Airlines this week that was pretty funny. I was flying from Austin to Dallas and then on to New York City for work. Unfortunately I accidentally booked the wrong flight! I showed up at the gate just in time to watch them pull away my bag before closing the door.

I had two choices: Stand in line at DFW airport for an hour or so to talk with an agent and try to get on the next flight, or stay calm and wait for an answer from the customer service number. The first option would have been long, frustrating and ended up costing me over $400 on top of my missed

I missed my flight to Beijing by 15 minutes. I can say it was a mix of being too cautious and over-planning that led to my missing the flight. I left in plenty of time but what I didn’t plan for was a huge amount of traffic on the way to the airport. Luckily, the reason for missing my flight wasn’t because I fell asleep or forgot about it.

I booked my United Airlines ticket online and used miles from my Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card. It cost me 50,000 miles plus $5.60 in taxes and fees.

My flight was at 8:00 am from Newark Airport (EWR) to O’Hare Airport (ORD) then onto Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK). I left at 5:30 am for the 90 minute drive to Newark Airport from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The traffic was horrendous on the New Jersey Turnpike that morning! It took me three hours just to get to Newark Airport!

I should have known there would be traffic because it is a holiday weekend with Memorial Day on Monday and everyone headed out at 6:00 am so they could reach their destinations by noon.

I decided not to pay $50 extra dollars for TSA PreCheck but that ended up being a mistake because

What to do when you miss your flight?

My travel partner and I missed our connecting flight from Newark to Seattle due to a late arrival from Los Angeles. After dropping off our bags at the United check-in counter, we were told that we would have to go straight through security and then proceed to the gate in order to make it on time. We had hoped that we could go back to the Admirals Club lounge for a quick bite but unfortunately, the line at security was long and moved at a snail’s pace. Worse yet, the TSA agent left her station right before we got to the front of the line so we had to wait even longer.

Minutes ticked by as we tried desperately to get through security in time but no matter how fast we ran, we seemed like we wouldn’t make it. It was a terrible feeling knowing that there was nothing more that we could do but hope for the best. Luckily, there were still seats available on an earlier flight so the agent behind the podium rebooked us with no hassle. However, she couldn’t check us in because she said that we had not yet received clearance from customs since our previous flight originated in Europe (which was odd because this is never an issue

When I walked up to the ticket counter at the airport, I was sure everything was going to work out smoothly.

“I’m sorry to inform you that your flight has been cancelled,” the Delta representative said as soon as I arrived.

My first reaction was “What do you mean it has been cancelled?” My second reaction was “what do I do now?”

My travel buddy and I had a flight from Lisbon to JFK airport in New York. Our boarding gate was scheduled to close at 6:20pm, however we were stuck in traffic about 45 minutes away from the airport. We left for the airport way too late.

We called American Airlines (the airline we were flying on) and asked if there was any way we could still make the flight. American’s automated robot on the phone said “no”, so we figured that was it. But then we called again, and this time told the agent our situation.

She put us on hold for over 15 minutes while she looked into it. When she came back online, she said that there wasn’t a flight out of Lisbon until 8am the next morning, but they could put us on a flight out of Madrid that was leaving at 10:45pm tonight!

All of it would be free, too! We thought this was great news… but then realized that there was no way we would be able to get all our bags and ourselves over to Madrid in 45 minutes before the plane left!