Do you keep up with your flight status, or do you just assume everything is OK because you haven’t heard differently?  The airlines don’t always notify you of changes.  They might change:

• The flight number
• Departure time
• Departure gate
• Airplane type
• Seat selection

Sometimes I get notified of changes, and other times I don’t.  I’ve gotten notifications that say that they’ve changed the flight, but that we’re already set up on the new flight. Then I go into their app only to find out they’ve changed the time, plane type, and seats.  The new plane doesn’t have first class which is what we originally booked, so they moved us to different seats.  Almost every year they change to a smaller plane with no first class.  If you want some money back, they don’t give that automatically, you have to call and request it.  And they don’t always compensate you for it.

I may be a little anal about it, but I try to go into the airline’s app and check our flight every day.  It takes less than 5 minutes and you can usually tell if something doesn’t look like it did the day before.  I’ve found more changes before they notify me of a change, if they notify me at all, than they tell me first.

Then there’s the weather changes.  Is there a storm coming?  Check what your options are to change flights or even what day you fly.  Maybe even change airports.  It might be better to leave a day early or late than not be able to go at all.  You might have to pay for a hotel room to fly to a different airport the day before your scheduled flight, but that could be better than cancelling the entire trip.  Check with the resort to see what options there are for arriving a day early or late and see if they’ll waive fees.  Make sure to tell them it’s due to weather, not just because you changed your mind.

And don’t forget to check in 24 hours in advance of your flight.  If you print out your boarding pass, make sure you have it, know where it is, and can get it out easily.  If you have your boarding pass on your phone, make sure you can display it without connecting to Wi-Fi.  The Wi-Fi in some airports is still pretty bad and you don’t want to be standing there trying to connect so you can log in and download the pass while the plane is boarding.

Don’t just sit back and relax till the day before you’re scheduled to fly out assuming that everything is fine!