here is the trick , usairway used to have a special from pittsburgh to IAD for $29 to compete with independence air ..that flight stops at LGA . when i get to lga i just take off to newyork .
now usairways is competeing with south west , i think we can still do the same thing to other cities.

that's a big no-no.....buyer beware

that's a big no-no.....buyer beware


what you mean buyers be aware
iam not selling any thinng...

my wife used to live in newyork for 4 years and i lived in pittsburgh . i used this way of travel at least 4 times and it all worked.

If you don't fly the 2nd segment of your outbound, any airline reserves the right to cancel your return ticket. That's the "buyer beware".....

Jim

And if you do it multiple times they might notice and they will charge you full Y for PIT-LGA.

Buying a round trip ticket to use only the first flight is perfectly legitimate. But indeed flying PIT-LGA only, you may not be able to fly back, so where do you save money?

Buying a round trip ticket to use only the first flight is perfectly legitimate. But indeed flying PIT-LGA only, you may not be able to fly back, so where do you save money?

Wrong. Throwaway, hidden city, and back to back ticketing are all verboten by most legacy airlines. All risk termination of FF balances and other consequences such as cancellation of other tix. Just because you got away with it once (or 4x) does not mean the airline permits it or will not catch you eventually.

Buying a round trip ticket to use only the first flight is perfectly legitimate. But indeed flying PIT-LGA only, you may not be able to fly back, so where do you save money?

Zaynab -- where did you just come from? that's fully inaccurate information you've spread above and bad info is our number one enemy here on Flyertalk.

Any passenger runs a significant risk pulling this sort of stunt with any regularity. There are scads (yes, scads) of documented cases where airlines have pulled the rug right out from under such folks and, in some cases, even terminated their high value frequent flier accounts!

This is not the sort of game for the uninitiated. Back in the day, if one was very smart about it and booked just one way tickets (not r/ts), this was an easier thing to pull off.

Everyone needs to know that airlines have been clued in to this sort of practice for more than a decade and, if caught, you can end up in a real bind.

The OP never said he was buying a roundtrip. He only posed it like he was buying a one way PIT-LGA-IAD, and not getting on the continuing segment to IAD.

In that scenario, he's not risking a "return" segment being cancelled since there isn't one.

But that doesn't address the other issue of throwaway ticketing (buying a cheap routing and not using part of it), or back to back ticketing (buying 2 roundtrip excursion fare tickets to create one single one). They are "prohibited" by the airlines' own policies. It's not illegal, and you can't get arrested, nor can they go back and ding your credit card for more money. And if you don't have an FF account with them, then what's the real "risk" until they actually catch up with you and tell you to stop? They have no legal recourse to come after you othewise.

In fact, the HP contract of carriage only prohibits the combining of roundtrip tickets:
"USE OF COUPONS FROM TWO OR MORE TICKETS ISSUED AT ROUND TRIP FARES FOR THE PURPOSE OF CIRCUMVENTING APPLICABLE TARIFF RULES (SUCH AS ADVANCE PURCHASE/MINIMUM STAY) IS NOT PERMITTED."

Their contract of carriage doesn't anywhere prohibit using only part of a one way ticket.

The USAirways contract of Carriage, however, makes a pretty blanket, general statement:
"A customer who, due to a cancellation or delay of a flight, or a voluntary change, does not fly a segment
of his or her itinerary must notify US Airways of any alternate travel plans prior to the originally scheduled
flight departure to avoid cancellation of remaining segments. Depending on the changes made and the
ticket issued, additional charges, including a change fee, or refunds may apply."

I neither condone nor condemn the practice. But people who do it should be fully aware of the risks involved.

[...] or back to back ticketing (buying 2 roundtrip excursion fare tickets to create one single one). They are "prohibited" by the airlines' own policies. [...] In fact, the HP contract of carriage only prohibits the combining of roundtrip tickets:
"USE OF COUPONS FROM TWO OR MORE TICKETS ISSUED AT ROUND TRIP FARES FOR THE PURPOSE OF CIRCUMVENTING APPLICABLE TARIFF RULES (SUCH AS ADVANCE PURCHASE/MINIMUM STAY) IS NOT PERMITTED."

I neither condone nor condemn the practice. But people who do it should be fully aware of the risks involved.


Okay, so let's say someone was booking a flight PHX-ORD. That someone discovered he could fly from LAX-ORD for less money (including getting to LAX). So someone books LAX-ORD and PHX-LAX. Is this an example of back-to-back ticketing (and verboten) or a legitimate way to book a ticket? There was no intent to skirt the system - just to increase miles - and advance purchase/min/max stay were the same for both routings. If it matters, the LAX-ORD routes through PHX both directions, so the ultimate routing is PHX-LAX-PHX-ORD-PHX-LAX-PHX.

Just curious - not that I would ever do something like this... a "friend" was concerned... ;)

That should be ok - nothing wrong with buying as many one-way tickets as you want and using each one for the segments ticketed.

In my response to the OP, I assumed that the return LGA-PIT would also be desired, even if bought separately as a one-way. Seems that at the time of I-Air, the cheap fares would have required the return to be IAD-LGA-PIT or alternatively an much more expensive one-way LGA-PIT.

In the first case, the chance of getting the LGA-PIT cancelled for no-showing the IAD-LGA segment seems pretty great.

In the second case, the cost of the LGA-PIT ticket probably brings up the average fare for the two segments (PIT-LGA & LGA-PIT) up to the point that the airline would be pretty happy with the yield. After all, it's no accident that legacy carriers usually charge less for a round trip than two one-way tickets.

In short, "gaming" the system can work pretty well if you only want to go one way or can find one-way tickets at a low price. Most folks want to go and return, where "gaming" the system carries greater financial risk.

Jim

Okay, so let's say someone was booking a flight PHX-ORD. That someone discovered he could fly from LAX-ORD for less money (including getting to LAX). So someone books LAX-ORD and PHX-LAX. Is this an example of back-to-back ticketing (and verboten) or a legitimate way to book a ticket?

Verboten. Do so at your own risk. As a few of us learned on the ART trips, :rolleyes: the airline doesn't take much pity on those trying to skirt around their rules.

If it matters, the LAX-ORD routes through PHX both directions, so the ultimate routing is PHX-LAX-PHX-ORD-PHX-LAX-PHX.


Let's say your PHX-LAX flight is late...if you miss the LAX-PHX leg, the rest of your itinerary will be cancelled, and you're stuck in PHX until the LAX-PHX leg (same ticket.) Or more likely there are delays in ORD...US will protect you through to LAX, but you'd better hope you've allowed ample time to catch the LAX-PHX leg or you'll be buying a walk-up fare.

Most legacy carriers reserve the right to charge you for the full fare price between your origin and where you got off.

There have been instances where legacies have forced passengers to pay up when they made a habit of throw-away ticketing.

There have been instances where legacies have forced passengers to pay up when they made a habit of throw-away ticketing.

Just adding my unsolicited confirmation that the above is accurate. In such cases, the passenger was quite well aware that s/he was skirting the system and was surely floored when confronted with reality.

That's why I say such shenanigans are not for the uninitiated.

if you try to do this multiple times it will probably be better if you DON'T put your frequent flyer account in your res and use different credit cards, it would make it harder for the airline to track it.

Only did this myself once, I was flying PHL-LAX, return LAX-IAD-PHL. Just so happened that my plans changed and I had business in Washington DC so I just threw out the IAD-PHL boarding pass when I arrived at IAD. No problems, but airlines do look at patterns....

No problem doing it once - plans change. I had an RT RDU-BOS-RDU booked on AA and then needed to go to NYC for a week. AA wanted like 500USD to change the BOS-RDU to BOS-LGA. Threw out the ticket back home and booked a DL shuttle flight for around 100USD. AA never cared.

I'm sure if I did the routine often though, they would not be happy and I would get called by the "fraud dept" (apparently AA claims to have one!).

Nested R/Ts with a one-way "starter" are about as far as I've gone to cicumnavigate the rules. Having an airilne with a codeshare partner helps.

That said, when I used to want to fly from PIT to NYC I just followed a Porsche most of the way across 80 and kept the fuzzbuster well tuned ;).

Okay, so let's say someone was booking a flight PHX-ORD. That someone discovered he could fly from LAX-ORD for less money (including getting to LAX). So someone books LAX-ORD and PHX-LAX
Check the fare rules. I may be wrong, but I believe that most fares are end-on-end combinable, such that you could do this on one ticket and there would be nothing illegal about it, plus your connections would be protected, which would not, as shell nyc points out, be the case on 2 tickets.

Check the fare rules. I may be wrong, but I believe that most fares are end-on-end combinable, such that you could do this on one ticket and there would be nothing illegal about it, plus your connections would be protected, which would not, as shell nyc points out, be the case on 2 tickets.


eek - I didn't realize the protected connections part. I just assumed that if I booked two tickets, US would honor/work with me in the event of a weather delay. It never occured to me to just do this as a multi-city single-ticket booking - I should have tried that instead. Oh well, we'll see what happens come Saturday - hopefully there will be decent weather and no delays. If it all works out, I've got a day to check out the Field Museum, Star of Siam, and the Goose Island Brewery... ^

[replace I and me with "my friend"]. :)

The OP never said he was buying a roundtrip. He only posed it like he was buying a one way PIT-LGA-IAD, and not getting on the continuing segment to IAD.

In that scenario, he's not risking a "return" segment being cancelled since there isn't one.

But that doesn't address the other issue of throwaway ticketing (buying a cheap routing and not using part of it), or back to back ticketing (buying 2 roundtrip excursion fare tickets to create one single one). They are "prohibited" by the airlines' own policies. It's not illegal, and you can't get arrested, nor can they go back and ding your credit card for more money. And if you don't have an FF account with them, then what's the real "risk" until they actually catch up with you and tell you to stop? They have no legal recourse to come after you othewise.

In fact, the HP contract of carriage only prohibits the combining of roundtrip tickets:
"USE OF COUPONS FROM TWO OR MORE TICKETS ISSUED AT ROUND TRIP FARES FOR THE PURPOSE OF CIRCUMVENTING APPLICABLE TARIFF RULES (SUCH AS ADVANCE PURCHASE/MINIMUM STAY) IS NOT PERMITTED."

Their contract of carriage doesn't anywhere prohibit using only part of a one way ticket.

The USAirways contract of Carriage, however, makes a pretty blanket, general statement:
"A customer who, due to a cancellation or delay of a flight, or a voluntary change, does not fly a segment
of his or her itinerary must notify US Airways of any alternate travel plans prior to the originally scheduled
flight departure to avoid cancellation of remaining segments. Depending on the changes made and the
ticket issued, additional charges, including a change fee, or refunds may apply."

I neither condone nor condemn the practice. But people who do it should be fully aware of the risks involved.

agree 100% . i asked AAA reavel agent about this , the only thing is wrong about it is the airline might worry about and where did u go . if you tell them that to need to stay in IAD and not to finish to LGA , you not breaking any laws . its like you are buying asandwish and just you eat half of it ,, you think they will jail me for that. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

agree 100% . i asked AAA reavel agent about this , the only thing is wrong about it is the airline might worry about and where did u go . if you tell them that to need to stay in IAD and not to finish to LGA , you not breaking any laws . its like you are buying asandwish and just you eat half of it ,, you think they will jail me for that. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Well, if a "AAA reavel agent" confirms it, it must be true. All of us old hands on this board must be wrong.

I actually used to do a similar thing back in the 90's. Over the course of a project, I needed to spend about 2 weeks every month in Detroit. NW's fare SNA-DTW at the time was $1940 without a Saturday stay and $700 with. I didn't really want to spend my weekends in Detroit, so I'd book a R/T Monday to the following week's Friday SNA-DTW-SNA for $700. Then I'd book a R/T Friday to Monday DTW-SNA-DTW for $700.

Net result was 4 segments for $1400 instead of $3880. Still ridiculous of course, but better.

It was a win for me because, at the time, my company had set up a travel savings program where anytime you picked a booking that saved money, you got to pocket 20% of the savings.

Of course, it was probably an "illegal" practice then and most certainly would be now (at least on one airline).

I actually used to do a similar thing back in the 90's. Over the course of a project, I needed to spend about 2 weeks every month in Detroit. NW's fare SNA-DTW at the time was $1940 without a Saturday stay and $700 with. I didn't really want to spend my weekends in Detroit, so I'd book a R/T Monday to the following week's Friday SNA-DTW-SNA for $700. Then I'd book a R/T Friday to Monday DTW-SNA-DTW for $700.

Net result was 4 segments for $1400 instead of $3880. Still ridiculous of course, but better.

It was a win for me because, at the time, my company had set up a travel savings program where anytime you picked a booking that saved money, you got to pocket 20% of the savings.

Of course, it was probably an "illegal" practice then and most certainly would be now (at least on one airline).

I don't think that practice is against the rules, since you used all of the segments that you booked.