Questions and Answers

I am flying Cincinnati (CVG) to Florence with my husband and our 16 month old son next week, Feb 6th..So excited!!!

Here is the problem, we booked a flight from EWR to FLR (departing EWR at 6:15 PM on Feb 6) with TAP Portugal, TP 202 and we are on a separate ticket with Delta from CVG to EWR (departing CVG at 1:15 PM on Feb 6, scheduled arrival EWR at 3:15 PM, DL 3423). So with our plan we should be at the airport 3 hours before departure which would be perfect but I have been tracking the Delta CVG-EWR flight and that’s often been delayed more than 2 hours in the past week. Per TAP the gates close 45 min before the take off ( which I thought was strange but that’s the answer I got).

Both these flights will be at Terminal B at EWR. Even if we decide to take only carry on so we can directly get to gate instead of trying to go through baggage claim and go through security again, I feel very nervous if we will be able to make this flight. Since these are two separate tickets, I don’t know if Delta or TAP will offer us another flight or we will be stuck.

Of course, I called Delta with this and they said they can book me on an earlier flight which departs CVG at 6 AM after paying the $400+ difference and rebooking fee of additional $200 per person so that would leave us at the airport for 12 hours with a toddler exhausted and scary recipe for an upcoming vacation.

Neither of us are Delta members however we used Chase Saphire Reserve to book our flights ( points for EWR to FLR and money for CVG to EWR).

If you can offer any advice or help, I’ll really appreciate it.