thetoolman

I was booking a flight from XNA to LGA direct for next month, but the price is very high for the W-F schedule I need. Playing around with the multi-city pricing I was able to successfully book XNA - LGA - XNA - LGA - XNA where the 2nd round trip is another meeting I have in May with what looks like a 60 day stopover at home in between. This 4-leg ticket priced out $30 less than the single round trip.

Unsurprisingly, this can't be booked on Delta.com but I booked it and got the ticket issued through the Delta iOS app. I have a receipt, C+ upgrade and chosen seats.

My questions:

1. will Delta honor this ticket as I booked it?
2. what happens if I try to book/fly another flight during the 60 day stopover?
3. at what point will I find out if they decide not to honor it?

jrl767

1- I don't see why not
2- I would expect absolutely nothing, as you're not changing anything associated with this reservation
3- probably never, but I'm almost certain some folks on this forum will have other opinions

caliform

Smart booking. I don't think you will run into any issues, provided you don't miss a leg.

kxc262

Regarding #2 - I have booked tickets where I have a 72 hr layover. During that layover I flew another Delta flight (different reservation) and flew during that time. No issues.

kop84

Technically on one ticket this would not be breaking the published are rules trying to circumvent min/max stay rules. How could you fraudulently be doing it if it's all on one ticket.

What IS technically against the rules is if you did that with 2 tickets.

Example:
Ticket 1
XNA to LGA Feb13 and LGA to XNA return on August 18

Ticket 2
LGA to XNA Feb 17 and XNA to LGA on August 14

thetoolman

This was actually my first plan, but I was concerned about having two active tickets at the same time. I don't know the rules well enough to know how this violates them but it seems plausible.

Frankly, I was surprised my single-ticket multi-city routing worked - it seems like this is a loophole in the app that they've already closed on the website.

jrl767

pretty sure that "nested tickets" like this are only illegal if there's a minimum stay limitation (e.g., Saturday night) associated with one or both

xliioper

Cheapest fares on this route are a $363 V fare which have a 21-day advance purchase and Saturday night stay requirement. So nesting tickets to get V fares would be considered a violation of ticketing rules.

FOR TRAVEL ON/AFTER 01JAN 17 TRAVEL FROM LAST STOPOVER MUST COMMENCE NO EARLIER THAN THE FIRST SUN AFTER DEPARTURE FROM FARE ORIGIN

I was able to repeat OP's trick using Google Flights and got all V fares for a total of $750 and was able to bring it up on delta.com. Booking the trips separately results in two $753 L fares. Not sure why OP says he only saw $30 in savings. I'm seeing $756 in savings. Not sure why delta.com is letting you book something as a single ticket which would appear to violate their own ticketing rules.

thetoolman

This helps, where do you find those fare rules?
The 4-leg itinerary was $30 less than booking just the first round trip by itself. Total savings is in the $750 range.

xliioper

The fare rules are linked in the Terms and Conditions section at the bottom of the Trip Summary page after you have selected your flights.

Here are the ticketing rules which prohibit

"Back-to-back ticketing - combining multiple overlapping round-trip tickets to circumvent Saturday or other overnight stay requirements"

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...trictions.html

ajwright

I don't think what the OP has done here violates this rule (or any). The OP has not combined overlapping round-trip tickets, nor has he nested trips (which is a trip within a trip). An overlapping violation involves using more than one ticket to circumvent pricing.

In this case, he presented his exact intentions to Delta for purchase on one ticket, and they were happy to do so.

Bagels

It's definitely a violation of DL's ticketing rules (see LBJ's above posting for a good explanation). Just because the ticket was sold & purchased directly does not mean it's clean. Many of us are savvy enough to "manipulate" tickets in some manner or another to yield a lower fare; in recent years, most airlines have introduced IT upgrades that "catch" these and prevent the sale, but some instances are still possible.

That said... will the OP get caught? If he hadn't posted this on FT, 99.99999% chance he wouldn't have been (even with the posting, probably hasn't changed much though). In other words... I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

RRDD

Disagree .... The average consumer does not read T&C's. The consumer trusts that the Multi-National corporation would not sell a product at a stated price, for a stated use, if the service would later be denied.

flyerCO

Sorry, but that's not the case. As long as all is on one ticket it's fine. What DL prohibits is using multiple tickets to get around fare conditions.

seawolf

Seems like DL ticketing systems failed to catch this but nonetheless it most likely violates fare rules and if you have IRROPS involving agent intervention, they may/may not turn it into an issue.