{"id":5316,"date":"2022-09-14T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=5316"},"modified":"2023-04-18T11:24:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T17:24:37","slug":"playing-russian-roulette-for-better-flights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/14\/playing-russian-roulette-for-better-flights\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing Russian Roulette for Better Flights"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Introduction<\/h4>\n<p>Major US and world airlines all have some variation of a \u201cflat tire\u201d rule, so named because United Express gets flat tires nearly daily <em>[citation needed]<\/em>. The gist of these rules is that if you\u2019re late to the airport, miss a flight, and show-up within an hour or two after departure, the airline will reaccommodate you on another flight on a space available basis.<\/p>\n<p>Well, gamers gonna game, so we can take advantage of these rules.<\/p>\n<h4>The Game<\/h4>\n<p>Let\u2019s say that you\u2019ve booked an evening IAH-LAX-DEN versus a direct IAH-DEN flight because it was a few hundred dollars cheaper than the direct IAH-DEN flight that leaves an hour later, but you\u2019d really still like to take the direct flight. You can see where this is going, right? As long as there\u2019s space on that direct flight, you can probably \u201cmiss\u201d the IAH-LAX flight time by a few minutes and be rebooked on the direct IAH-DEN flight under the flat tire rule. Why did I choose this example you ask? Uh, let\u2019s keep it at \u201cbecause reasons\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from switching to a direct routing, there are other creative reasons to do this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To extend your time in a city (especially useful when you\u2019re booked on the last flight out for the day)<\/li>\n<li>To let you sleep in past that early morning departure<\/li>\n<li>To avoid flying on a CRJ-200<\/li>\n<li>To miss the last direct flight of the day and be rebooked with a connection, only to backdoor hidden-city ticket and leave the airport at the connection<\/li>\n<li>Because upgrade chances on another flight are much better<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Airline Rules<\/h4>\n<p>When do you have to show up at the airport to qualify for the flat rule?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AA: 2 hours after originally scheduled departure<\/li>\n<li>Delta: No official policy, but generally anything within two hours is fine<\/li>\n<li>United: No official policy, but generally anything within an hour is fine<\/li>\n<li>Southwest: 2 hours after originally scheduled departure<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, there\u2019s a good shot that if you call in to the airline\u2019s customer service department after your missed departure, they\u2019ll handle everything and you won\u2019t have to go to the airport at all, but <em>ymmv<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h4>Caveats<\/h4>\n<p>Obviously playing these games could backfire in several ways, for example: flights are sold out for a few days and you\u2019re stuck, you might end up in a middle seat, you may be routed through Lubbock, TX, and so on. The best defense to problems like these is to know what flight availability and seat-maps look like after your scheduled departure time, so make sure to tilt the odds in your favor.<\/p>\n<p>Happy flying!<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-editorskit-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5321\" sizes=\"(max-width: 991px) 100vw, 991px\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/erj-145.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/erj-145.jpeg 991w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/erj-145-300x220.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/erj-145-768x563.jpeg 768w\" width=\"420\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Another form of Russian Roulette: Taking your originally scheduled flight on an ERJ-145.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction Major US and world airlines all have some variation of a \u201cflat tire\u201d rule, so named because United Express gets flat tires nearly daily<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":2,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5316"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6946,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5316\/revisions\/6946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}