I got a 4am wakeup call yesterday morning, I was planning on getting a little coffee into my system and catching up on a bit of work before heading to the airport for my 7am flight to Dallas. When the hotel room phone rang I reached over for my mobile phone and saw an alert from American that my flight was delayed.

What was originally a 7:15am departure was now showing 9:38am, darn it, I really didn’t need to be up. No turning back now, I fired up the laptop and saw that I’d now be looking at a 7 minute connection in Dallas. That wasn’t going to work. So I rang up American.

At the same time I started looking for flight availability myself. This point can’t be stressed enough, and you’ll see why in a moment. Regardless of the airline it always pays to do your own homework rather than rely on the skills of an agent alone.

• They don’t want to make it to your home as badly as you do. They may well be helpful, occasionally even motivated, but never quite so motivated as you.

• They do this all day and while that may make them experts they also learn to skip over some things that ‘don’t ever work’.

• They think in terms of what the median passenger wants. They get told all day long that what they’re offering is unacceptable. It’s a thankless job. Outside the box thinking — like extra connections the computer doesn’t suggest or alternate airports — is rarely rewarded. Most agents, offering an alternate airport, might be faced with complaints about the cost of getting to the wherever the passenger really wants to be. You have to own these situations yourself.

A very friendly and sympathetic agent took a look, realized I would never make my connection, and starting looking for alternatives. She didn’t see anything. Everything was sold out. It wasn’t just a regular day, and flights are regularly sold out. It’s Sunday. Sunday afternoon, no less. And following a holiday weekend.

I was flying Dallas-Portland and needed to make it back to DC. I asked about Washington Dulles instead of National. She had nothing. She was offering me flights the next morning.

While we were chatting I asked if she could see the reason for the delay. It turned out to be crew-related. The crew for the flight had come into Portland the night before on a much-delayed flight, and required minimum rest hours before turning around in the morning. So they had to push our flight out.

I looked up the United flight. It appeared to be wide opened. I asked, “Since the delay isn’t weather-related, I’m wondering if we might try the United flight at 5pm?”

She looked, saw there was availability, and proceeded to ring United to work on moving me over. While I was on hold though I kept looking for options.

That isn’t actually all that easy with American. FlightStats.com doesn’t display American Airlines availability but Expertflyer does. So does the KVS Tool by accessing the Japanese website Etours.jp.

I kept playing around and all of a sudden four first class seats opened up on a Washington Dulles flight leaving about 50 minutes later than the United flight.

Quick decision time. Looked like I wouldn’t even get a decent seat on the United flight, but I could probably manage to earn miles both for the United segment I actually flew and for the American segment I was supposed to fly. That was appealing. But I figured I’d take a stab at asking for first class.

The agent came back on the line while processing the change over to United. I asked about the first class seats, “Really? Those weren’t available before. But I see them. I can’t confirm you in first class though, but I can get you on the flight, have inventory management open up something in Y.” I figured why not? Let’s do it. I wouldn’t have to change terminals in Dallas, I’d be productive in the lounge, and I’d probably get my upgrade, something that wouldn’t happen on the United flight.

Here’s what impressed me: The agent worked in real-time with inventory management to get the inventory. She knew how to do it. She was receptive to putting me on another airline. I don’t think I’ve had an airline agent willing to do it without being pushed since 2009. (At the time I was flying on an Alaska Airlines $99 companion ticket in first class — and both passengers had been ticketed as companions… a delayed inbound aircraft meant I was going to misconnect on the way to Reno, and the local DCA station proactively called me and got me moved over to Continental). Normally even when delays are due to causes other than weather agents are really reluctant to grab space on another airline.

I was assigned an exit row on a flight that turned out to be oversold. And my upgrade cleared, even though I had been moved onto the flight just that morning. Well-played, American, albeit with a little assist from KVS and etours.

In the end I landed about two and a half hours later than planned, and at an airport that’s $35 more expensive to get home from my cab. That’s just one of the costs of travel, and if that’s the worst that happens to me on a trip then I’m really fortunate!