USVI-On-Line

Trying to get airfare booked for February trip out of Lexington. Have an "opportunity" to get a good set of connections and a decent rate ($558 pp) through Expedia by matching US Airways from Lexington through Charlotte into San Juan then American from San Juan to STT. Reversed going back.

Anybody do this? I'm just concerned that US Airways could change their flight times going down and cause us to miss our connection in SJU. It's a single ticket, but I'm guessing that American couldn't care less that we miss the flight because of US Airways and we'd be stuck in SJU.

What experience do you all have with this? Thanks for the replies!!

Phew, that's a lot of flights and that means a lot of opportunity for mishaps. What else can you do? Price is good but...

I have never done anything like that so a couple of questons.
1) Are you carry-on only?
2) What is the connection time between flights?

If the answer to #1 is "yes" and the answer to #2 is 1 hour or more I'd consider it.

This is an extremely risky way to get there. This past summer I used AA miles to book a flight. The only thing available was Chicago-Cincinnati-Miami-STT. Wouldn't you know it, one flight dorked up the entire house of cards. Thankfully I am exec platinum and they bent over backwards to find seats to San Juan for my family of 6, otherwise we would have been hosed and stuck hoping that maybe they could get us all out the next day...

We ended up staying that night in the San Juan hotel, the kids called it "vacation Gitmo". Flight to STT the next morning, and life was good.

I wouldn't chance it at all. Even if it cost you an extra $100-$200 to go with one connection (max), it will be worth it.

In my opinion

I have done mix n match airlines a number of times and have not had any particular problems. Your connection between US Air and American is in San Juan, which isn't a huge airport, so thats good.

The second, unrelated issue is that you have three flights. We always have three flights on the way to STT. We did lose some bags one time when we had three flights (all on AA)with tight connections. You can certainly reduce your risk by going carry-on.

Thanks all.

Will be checking a single bag, but honestly don't care if it makes it with us. We'll carry-on our personal items and some clothes and check the snorkel gear, curlers for wife and other more bulky items. No big deal if it arrives the next day....

I'm really not as concerned about the connections as we have well over an hour between each flight. More concerned about US Air changing schedules and making it physically impossible to make the last connection. There are several more American flights to STT if we miss ours so I guess the risk is really pretty small.

I'm just having a really tough time bringing myself to pay over $600 per ticket for a "1 connection" flight. Both US Air and American offer it, but it's around $650 round trip. I've NEVER paid more than $375 in previous years!

I can pay $504 out of Columbus Ohio, but that's a 3 hour drive and we'd have to stay the night before and the return night in a hotel - that makes NO sense....

Sorry for the rant - just frustrated over our very high and inconvenient midwest airfare!!

558? in feb? i'd say youre doing great-- i just paid 740--from Newark (ugh) and with multple airlines--and thought i was doing well! (in Feb as well)

My inclination would be to not do it. Especially given that weather is unpredictable in Feb.

I guess it depends if you are a worrier or not. I am, so it would pretty much mess up my whole month before worrying about it.

Pia wrote:If you don't show up at the AA gate in SJU because of a delayed flight on USAir, AA won't care (so I have been told) that another airlines flight was late all they have in their system is that you have a ticket on AA from SJU to STT and if you are a no show and you have to buy another ticket (this happened to a friend who had booked on I think Orbitz)

Pia

This happened with a co-worker a few years ago. The flight into SJU was delayed out of Logan so they missed their AA flight, actually arrived as they shut the door and it was the last flight of the night. They had to pay for a hotel in SJU and pay for a new flight in the AM.

I agree that all the signs are there for a missed connection. Schedule changes, mechanical delays, weather, and ground holds are all possible. They need just one to go bad for you to miss your flight to STT. You need all of that to go perfectly to get there. No amount of money would cause me to buy that ticket.

Sorry

JIM

We are flying in February from Dulles and was able to get non-stop on United for $442.00 each so seeing some of the below flights I am feeling pretty lucky.

The price difference between the one connection flight and the multiple connection flight is less than $100--I say pay the extra money and increase your chances of getting there on time with less hassle.

There are so few flights (relatively) going to STT, that I even get a bit nervous about my direct flight from ORD this January.

If it helps somewhat; American online has the option of pricing multiple airlines-so you're buying your ticket directly through American, but then you fly different carriers depending on the connection. That might make you feel better if there's a problem....
We did this in July-the only problem we ran into there was that American/Us Air had physically different terminals at JFK/La Guardia so I partially freaked because we had to go in/out of security which was a big hassle. I don't know that it would be an issue for where you're flying through. When we did this we also had to go to the actual airlines website to pick our seats too.