Connecting flight problem!

zurdo

Hi Guys,

I'm looking for some help on a flight conundrum I’m having.....I’m flying to South America with American Airlines and coming home from Rio De Janeiro on the 16th October via New York (JFK). However we’ve decided to extend the travels and go to Central America and it turns out it’s much cheaper to take the Rio – JFK flight and book flights to Central America with Spirit or JetBlue airlines from New York rather than flying to Central America from Brazil (or anywhere in South America it seems).

My question is can we miss the JFK – DUB connecting flight on purpose pick up our bags and walk out of the airport in New York? It’s the last flight on the ticket so no worries about cancelling subsequent flights but I’m worried about the security/immigration/baggage issues. Spirit Airlines operate out of La Guardia so we will have to leave JFK airport completely but international flights to the US you have to pick up your bags regardless of whether you’re only in transit so this shouldn’t be a problem I presume?

Thanks in advance for any help!

BuffyBot

Yes, you can do that as it is the last flight in the intinerary. You will have to pick up your bags at JFK anyway in order to clear immigration/customs. It might be nice though, to let American know your plans have changed while at JFK, as they may have passengers stsnding by who then can give those seats to.

keithclancy

Only two possible bad things that could happen and I know have happened from the Flyertalk forums.

1. Your flight from Rio - JFK gets cancelled and you get re-routed with another Skyteam partner not through JFK (E.G. GIG - FCO - DUB with AL), or you do go through JFK and due to a delay you miss your self booked connecting flight.

2. Your bags don't make it to JFK and get sent on the next flight, creates a problem as you will not have traveled the last leg of your flight and AA will only deliver the bags to where you got off.

On the Flyertalk forums its not recommended to do Check-in luggage while wasting the last leg of the flight (This is very common with the Open-Jaw cheap fares)

Its a risk basically, there's a lot that could go wrong.
Myself, with the Open Jaw jaw flights I would only chance wasting the last leg in Europe since if it goes horribly wrong it won't be too expensive.

zurdo

Thanks for the replies! Keithclancy, we're going to give ourselves a lot of time between the self booked flight and the expected arrival in JFK, roughly 12 hours! If all goes well and we arrive in JFK bags and all then we can spend the day in NYC! If the bags don't arrive/are misplaced we should be able to change the onward connection (for a fee of course) and wait for the bags. The only real risk is if the flight is re-routed which is hopefully very unlikely.

The flight from New York to Central america is only $200 compared to around $800 for Rio to Central America so it's a risk worth taking I think.

@ BuffyBot, I have already tried to notify AA about cancelling the last flight through customer care but they haven't been much help. They're trying to charge me a 100 euro stopover fee even if I don't change the date of the last leg and openly admit I won't be catching the flight at all. Will definitely let the AA desk know when we are in the actual airport. Thanks again!

BuffyBot

@ BuffyBot, I have already tried to notify AA about cancelling the last flight through customer care but they haven't been much help. They're trying to charge me a 100 euro stopover fee even if I don't change the date of the last leg and openly admit I won't be catching the flight at all. Will definitely let the AA desk know when we are in the actual airport. Thanks again!

No point doing it in advance: of course they want to charge you for making a change to your flight.

keithclancy

zurdo wrote: »

Thanks for the replies! Keithclancy, we're going to give ourselves a lot of time between the self booked flight and the expected arrival in JFK, roughly 12 hours! If all goes well and we arrive in JFK bags and all then we can spend the day in NYC! If the bags don't arrive/are misplaced we should be able to change the onward connection (for a fee of course) and wait for the bags. The only real risk is if the flight is re-routed which is hopefully very unlikely.

12 hours .. that's not that much time, we spent almost 4 hours clearing immigration at JFK, in all honesty I think it's the worst airport I've ever been in.

Factor in the Skytrain + Subway that's another hour and a half, you'll only get a few hours in Manhattan before you have to head back.

Also if your bag doesn't arrive (which happened to us when going through JFK) it comes of the flight the following day, unless there's two flight operating on the route from GIG.

Hope it all goes well !

Make sure you apply for your ESTA in advance !
https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/

Fred Swanson

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