My short ATL layover debacle continued...

I had written about my upcoming trip from Indianapolis (IND) to Puerto Vallarta (PVR) connecting through Atlanta (ATL) booked through Costco Travel a couple months ago in this post. As I mentioned then, I noticed that my connection time was only 44 minutes which for anyone who has traveled through ATL knows can really be pushing it depending on where your terminals are located. I didn't make too much of big deal at the time because I assumed the flight must have met the required "minimum connection time" which is built into most airline booking websites.

However, I received a call from Costco Travel the other day saying that they realized they made a mistake and the flight actually didn't meet the minimum connection time (MCT) and that we needed to be rebooked on a different flight. The only problem was that because it was only a few weeks until the trip now there were no more available flights from IND-->PVR for July 1st. Luckily my husband's cousin is a travel agent and was able to work her magic to get us all rebooked on a mixture of different flights to get us to our destination on the same day but it did end up costing us a couple extra hundred dollars in the end. What she found out was that Costco actually buys these different flight segments at wholesale and then pieces them together to arrive at their itineraries which may not always meet the required MCTs.

Bottom Line

So in the end everything ended up working out alright although it did cost us a couple extra hundred dollars which we could have avoided if our flights were rebooked initially when we brought this issue up to Costco Travel months ago. However, it is good to know now for future purposes that when booking flights on Costco Travel to be aware that their itineraries may not always meet the standard MCTs. This will not prevent me from using Costco Travel in the future but will definitely make me more cautious and aware.

p.s. Did I mention how badly I need this vacation.