[martinald]

What I can't understand is why United (and tbh most airlines) put such ludicriously short connection times in going from international to domestic in the US.

I've literally had them quote a 42 min connection at me getting from IAD international to domestic. This is literally impossible unless the flight was very significantly early/they put me on Concorde by mistake. I phoned up when I noticed and asked to change flight. Nope, some huge change fee + additional difference in airfare due.

Gave up and sure enough I missed the flight. They just stuck me on the next one anyway, but probably lost the revenue for the flight I was meant to be on. This has happend multiple times (I've it take as much as 4 hours at EWR to go through immigration -> go through TSA-> get bag -> recheck bag -> go through TSA -> board plane.

It must cost them millions of dollars. And as far as I can see there is no option on the scheduling system to say I want a longer layover. Not crazy long, just some room to breathe. Annoying.

[killerdhmo]

@martinald, this sounds frustrating and I'm sorry about that. I can't speak for the United site, but when I travel I usually choose Delta. On the Delta.com site there's an option to filter by both Min and Max connection time. So, even though United doesn't do it, there are other airlines that do.

[ubernostrum]

As far as I can tell, 42 minutes violates United's own minimum connection time for international to domestic at IAD.

Their general MCT for IAD is 45 minutes domestic-domestic or domestic-international, and 90 minutes international-domestic. There are a few connections which allow all the way down to 65 minutes international-domestic, but nothing allowing 42. So if something quoted such a connection at you it would have been invalid per United's published times.

[peteretep]

    > And as far as I can see there is no option on the
    > scheduling system to say I want a longer layover

A travel agent can help you with that.

[BookmarkSaver]

Yes, but the idea that you actually have to hire a person to do something that can be almost trivially handled by their existing systems is ridiculous these days.

[peteretep]

    > something that can be almost trivially handled

One enters dangerous territory when one starts making assessments about how difficult changing a system they're not familiar with is.

[scottkduncan]

Or Kayak, where you can filter flights by layover time to make sure you don't get one that is too long or too short.

[tzz]

You can use Kayak to set your minimum layover time.

[martinald]

Will check that out, thanks.

[ryanlol]

Next time call the airline to book your flight, they can definitely help you.