Missed connections, canceled flights, hours-long delays - unfortunately, we’ve experienced our fair share of travel days that haven’t exactly gone according to plan.

We’ve landed just minutes too late to make a connection while traveling to a funeral. We were caught up in the CrowdStrike mess while vacationing in Belize and ended up having to fly to Houston and rent a car to get home to San Antonio. And we’ve had plenty of those delays where you spend hours watching the clock and calculating whether you can still make your connection if everything starts moving right now.

Before traveling with our son, I also spent more than a decade traveling frequently for work, so I’ve dealt with plenty of travel disruptions both with and without a child in tow.

And there is definitely a difference.

There’s no magic solution for fixing a travel day that has gone completely off the rails. Sometimes your options simply aren’t very good. But there are things we’ve learned that can make it easier to figure out what to do next, deal with the logistics and, eventually, make the best of a travel day that didn’t go anything like you planned.

Everything Gets More Complicated with Kids

The obvious one: there are more of you. You already know that finding space for one person on another flight is going to be easier than finding space for a family of three, but you really feel that difference when you’re suddenly competing for the last few available seats after a cancellation.

We also typically check a large suitcase on family vacations, which adds another logistical question: Where exactly is our bag going while we’re trying to figure out where we’re going?

And then, of course, there are the kids themselves.

As an adult, you understand what’s happening. You’re tired, frustrated and annoyed - and may not be handling your bad luck particularly gracefully - but you understand why your plans changed and that eventually you’ll figure it out.

A child may just know that they’re hungry, tired, confused and apparently spending the next six hours in an airport instead of going wherever you told them they were going.

So when things start going wrong, here’s what we do.

Start Working on Your Next Flight Immediately

Your first priority is figuring out how you’re getting where you need to go.

A lot of people instinctively head straight for the airline customer-service desk. If there’s no line, absolutely - start there.

But I will never understand standing in a line 30 people deep without trying anything else at the same time.

Call the airline!

Yes, you lose the face-to-face interaction, but while everyone else is physically waiting their turn, you may be able to get an agent on the phone and start looking at options.

I’ll admit this was even easier when I had United 1K status and access to priority service, but I still use the same strategy without it.

If I’m traveling with my husband, even better: one of us gets in line while the other gets on the phone. Whoever reaches a human first wins.

And don’t forget about the airline app. Depending on the airline and situation, you may be able to see rebooking options, or even confirm a new flight, without waiting for anyone at all.

The important thing is to start looking quickly. When an entire flight is canceled, you’re suddenly competing with a plane full of people for a limited number of seats.

Don’t Overlook the Gate Agents

The big customer-service desk isn’t necessarily your only source of help inside the airport.

If a gate agent isn’t actively trying to board a flight, they may be able to look at your itinerary, explain your options or point you toward another flight that could work.

Even if they can’t complete the entire rebooking, having a specific flight in mind can make the conversation much easier when you do reach customer service.

Instead of:

“How do we get home?”

You can ask:

“There are three seats showing on the 6:15 flight through Houston. Can you move us to that?”

That’s a much easier problem to solve.

Be Careful About Splitting Up Your Family

Sometimes the airline may find one or two available seats before they find enough for everyone. Before accepting anything, make sure you understand exactly what it does to the rest of the reservation.

And sometimes you can end up on separate reservations before anything has even gone wrong.

Our CrowdStrike experience was a perfect example. I had been upgraded on our flight to Belize, and with United, that meant my reservation was split from my husband and son’s. Normally, that’s not a big deal - I get the upgrade, everyone still takes the same flights and we all end up in the same place.

Until something goes wrong.

When flights started being rebooked because of CrowdStrike, I was automatically put on a new flight home. They weren’t.

Suddenly, instead of United managing one reservation with our whole family on it, we were trying to keep separate itineraries in sync while flights were being canceled and changed around us. I ended up spending part of our vacation on the phone with United trying to find a way to get all three of us home together. Eventually, we accepted a flight to Houston and rented a car for the rest of the trip home to San Antonio.

Would I turn down an upgrade because of this? Probably not! But it did make me much more aware of what it means when one person gets split off from the rest of the family’s reservation.

There may also be situations during a disruption where splitting up makes sense. Just make sure it’s intentional - and that you understand what happens to everyone else’s tickets and checked luggage if you do it.

Figure Out Where Your Luggage Is Going

If you checked luggage, this is one situation where I find talking to someone physically at the airport especially helpful.

Your bag may continue to your original destination without you. It may be held somewhere. It may get rerouted onto your new itinerary. It depends on what happened and how you were rebooked.

Ask rather than assume.

This is also one reason I like putting an Apple AirTag or Tile tracker inside our checked suitcase. It doesn’t change what the airline does with the bag, but at least I have some idea where it is.

And take advantage of whatever baggage-tracking tools your airline offers. United, for example, lets us follow the bag through different stages of the trip in the app.

Once You Have a Flight, Work Downstream

Getting rebooked is the urgent part. Once that’s handled, think about everything else your delay may affect.

Do you need to change a prearranged airport pickup? Contact a tour company? Let your hotel know you’ll be arriving after midnight instead of at 7 p.m.? Move a reservation or activity if you’ve lost an entire day?

Just don’t get too far ahead of yourself.

We learned that one the hard way.

On a trip to Philadelphia, my husband and I were convinced there was no chance we were making it there that night, so we canceled our hotel.

And then, somehow, the travel gods smiled upon us and we made it to Philadelphia after all.

Great!

Except now we had nowhere to stay.

We eventually found a hotel in New Jersey and took an Uber there for the night.

Lesson learned: until you know for sure that you aren’t getting somewhere, be careful about canceling something you may not be able to get back.

Keep a Few Essentials Accessible

This is one of those things you don’t think much about until your checked suitcase is headed somewhere you aren’t.

Even when we check luggage, I like having enough essentials with us to survive an unexpected night without it: medications, chargers, a few toiletries and whatever our son absolutely needs.

I’m not suggesting you pack an entire backup suitcase in your carry-on. But having the things that would be difficult, or miserable, to go without can make an unplanned overnight much easier.

If You’re Stuck for a While, Ask What the Airline Can Provide

Depending on why you’re delayed or canceled, the airline may offer things like meal vouchers or hotel accommodations.

If nothing is offered automatically, ask!

Especially if you’re facing a long delay with children, explain your situation and specifically ask whether there are meal vouchers available. There’s no guarantee they’ll provide anything, but it doesn’t hurt to ask - and I’ve found that sometimes there are options available that aren’t necessarily being announced to everyone at the gate.

If you aren’t getting anywhere, you can also ask customer service whether there’s a supervisor available who may have more flexibility to help.

What an airline provides can depend heavily on why the disruption happened, so I wouldn’t go into every delay expecting a free hotel, dinner and a pile of vouchers. But I also wouldn’t assume the answer is no without asking.

And if the airline doesn’t cover your expenses, check the benefits on the credit card you used to book the trip. Some travel cards include trip-delay coverage that may reimburse eligible expenses after a qualifying delay.

It’s one of those benefits that’s easy to forget exists until you actually need it.