Today, I am sharing nine fast tips for what to do AS SOON AS you hear an announcement that your flight has been cancelled at the airport.
My idea for this video sprang up after Derek and my flight from Newark to Cincinnati got cancelled last week due to Tropical Storm Elsa. We had already boarded our plane, and then experienced rolling delays for hours until our flight finally cancelled. Safety first of course! But, it was still a major bummer. Once the airline rescheduled our flight for the next morning, Derek and I worked together to quickly to figure out where we would sleep, how we would eat, how to get our new boarding passes, and more!
I took notes throughout the experience because I wanted to make sure that I could share our learnings with the Means To Travel community. I love when we can all be learn from each other about how to best prepare and take action for any possible travel woe!
Here are my nine quick tips for what to do if your flight gets cancelled by the airline:
- Divide and conquer! – Give each person you are traveling with a role to get everything done faster.
- Don’t wait for the airline to help you – unless you are certain they are going to arrange accommodations for all who need it (i.e. if it’s cancelled due to a mechanical issue), take action on figuring out your plan B
- Connect to the airport wifi – if several flights get cancelled around the same time, or if there is bad weather, you may want to consider connecting to the airport wifi in order to get a stronger cell signal. If a lot of people are trying to book their hotels and Ubers at the same time in the same place, the cell signal could get spotty!
- Have a hotel booking app downloaded to your smartphone – this is always a good idea to have in case you encounter issues while you travel. That said, you’ll want to have an app to more easily book yourself into an airport hotel quickly, as well as to easily check if a hotel has an airport shuttle.
- Don’t leave the airport without confirming your flight rebooking – it will be so much easier to wait in line and get a new boarding pass with your specific gate agent than to potentially wait on hold for hours with the airline customer service…especially in bad weather.
- Figure out what you will do for your next meal(s) – You do not want to arrive at your airport hotel just to find out that their restaurant is already closed. Or that it never even reopened after the pandemic. Or that they don’t have free breakfast like you had assumed. Make sure to determine where and how you will eat between now and your next flight BEFORE you leave the airport just in case you need to buy food while you’re still there.
- Don’t leave the airport until everyone has prepared for a longer-than-usual journey – It may take a long time to get onto an airport shuttle if a lot of flights have cancelled at once. Or there might be a long line to check in once you get to the hotel. Whatever the case, make sure everyone in your party has used the bathroom and has satisfied any immediate hunger before you leave the airport.
- Communicate with key parties AFTER you have created your new plan – no need to waste your valuable time on the phone talking to babysitters, house-sitters, or people picking you up at the airport until you already have your new plan in place. Use that time to immediately work to rebook your tickets and figure out your food and lodging. THEN, by all means, chat with those folks to make sure they won’t have issues accommodating the new schedule.
- Save your receipts and call your travel insurance if you have it – If you have travel insurance, definitely make sure to save all of your receipts so you can submit for reimbursement. Even if you don’t (we usually don’t buy it for domestic flights), make sure to save your receipts in case the travel credit cards that you used to book your trip and your new accommodations happen to have some sort of travel insurance program. You never know!
Hope you find the tips from this video to be useful, travelers! Sending good travel vibes your way! As always, happy travels!
-Eliz
Means To Travel Founder
#MeansToTravel
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