I spoke with the DM Service Centre, and whilst investigating some missing miles, the agent told me that I'm "using tickets out of order". I don't think I am, but I thought I'd ask for some additional opinions.

Here's what I did...

1) City A to City B on Date X
2) City B to City C on Day X
3) City C to City B on Date Y
4) City B to City A on Date Y

#1 and #4 are one ticket reservation, and #2 and #3 are another ticket reservation. Essentially, I booked City B to City C roundtrip within City A to City B roundtrip.

Am I good? It seems to me you should be allowed to travel from point A to point B, then B to C, C to B, and then B to A. Anyways, let me know...thanks!

[Edited because ThisFlightNoFuel is PARANOID http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif...just in case they really ARE watching! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif]

[This message has been edited by ThisFlightNoFuel (edited 05-03-2001).]

I've been doing this for years on Delta and Northwest with never a hiccup from either of them. I've even specifically asked their agents if I'm pushing the envelope by using the same Saturday night stay for 2 tickets, and they said "no."

FWIW

Legal? Unfortunatly, no. This is called "nested" ticketing. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

The good news is I have never heard of anyone getting in trouble for it. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by geo1004 (edited 05-03-2001).]

That's because there are legitimate reasons to do it that way. Let's say I'm on business in Raleigh for a couple of weeks. Find a great esaver from Raleigh to Miami. So I hop down there for the weekend and come back to work. So my trip would be like

PIT-RDU
RDU-MIA
MIA-RDU
RDU-PIT

That's fine .. I've done it several times. I would just say book them with separate agents if need be... Of course if you get in trouble I didn't say nothing! <grin>

pitflyer, that's what I thought, too! Or, what about people who fly to Europe from the US and then take an intra-europe flight on a separate ticket? It seems to me that this SHOULD be legitimate, despite what current policy may be.

But it's actually officially not allowed? I almost find it hard to believe. What do the airlines expect you to do in a situation like this?

It might be a tad risky, but what I've done is book the Outer one first. Make sure it gets issued. Then a day later, book the Inner one. I've done it a few times and had no problems.

As an aside the only time I almost got burned was when I booked a MYR-SBN R/T over two weeks, then found out instead of driving to a nearby spot over the weekend for a family rendezvous, I had to go back home, so I bought a 'Inner reverse - SBN-MYR & back', which they caught when I went to upgrade, but once the agent saw the purchase dates on the two tickets were a week apart, Outer first, and I explained what happened, she let it go. (I think the thought of trying to reticket me for a total of 12 segments had something to do with it also...)

Now DL would NEVER have let that one slide, the RPU would've melted my credit card by charging me out the wazoo, but guess who my preferred airline is? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I hear the RPU has a special satellite that can zap people who break Dull-ta's rules. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

The bottom line is that you are trying to avoid paying the regular Y-X fare by doing Y-Z-X and anything that stops the airline from making more money is against their rules. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Hmm...maybe I should have done this search first, but anyways...

I searched "General Traveltalk" for more info about "nested tickets". There seems to be a consensus on this thread that nested tickets (what I did) are not allowed. However, these threads seem to overwhelmingly say that they are. Are we confusing "nested tickets" (B to C roundtrip inside A to B roundtrip) with "back to back tickets" (B to A roundtrip inside A to B roundtrip)??
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum94/HTML/000020.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum94/HTML/000354.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum94/HTML/003406.html

It seems to me that the only way that my tickets would NOT be allowed was if the nested roundtrip returned to the origin of my outer roundtrip, say for instance, to avoid a Saturday night stay requirement. I wasn't avoiding a Saturday night stay requirement OR returning to my original destination with the nested ticket. I was simply taking advantage of two separate low fares to two separate destinations. What does anyone think about this?

[This message has been edited by ThisFlightNoFuel (edited 05-03-2001).]

Nested tickets are illegal (in the airlines' view) if they are done in an attempt to circumvent minimum stay or other revenue enhancing rules.

If your first fare did not have a minimum stay requirement, your nested ticket was not illegal. If it did, it was.

[This message has been edited by UpgradeMe (edited 05-03-2001).]

Nothing illegal about it. The airlines hate it, because people typically use this to avoid having to pay full fare. If a biz traveller has to go to a city 2 times, both for weekday business, then the fare structure would suck the most money out of him/her. If he/she is savvy, then they could use your methodolgy..travel out on Sunday, return the FOLLOWING Friday(10 days later). Then, for his/her return home, book a weekend roundtrip from city B back to A.

It could easily be argued that "I'm in city B for 2 weeks on business, but want to come home for a weekend", instead of what the airline hopes you say: "I need to go to city B for 2 seperate weeks for business, but have to be home in city A on the weekend".

Waitaminute--all the examples I've seen where it's illegal have you going back to your original city on the inner ticket. It seems a bit silly to prohibit going on to a third city inside. Some fare rules even let you do that on one ticket (a ticket of that nature is called an end-to-end combination).