Questions and Answers

I’ve got an award ticket in place for a departure one week from tomorrow but would prefer a different routing. It seems that there are plenty of options for my long-haul, but the domestic/North American segments are what’s tripping me up. (Trying to get from BDL to ORD or IAD on UA, or YYZ on AC.)

At what point should I give up looking for last-minute space, and just fly on what I’ve got?

Well, Ben has been known to book award seats the morning of the flight but most of us don’t have schedules quite that flexible. However I’m not aware that UA is known for making additional award seats available at the last minute. Haven’t heard that about AC either though I’m not very familiar with how they release award space.

There’s no harm in continuing to look for space, but as MidSouth says, it all depends how flexible your schedule is. If your current routing and your ideal routing both depart around the same time, then sure, I’d keep looking probably until the night before.

Or when one of your options becomes locked in. Like DL won’t allow cancellations within 72 hours of travel. At that point you’re more or less locked into flying that ticket.