Taoyuan

I believe a US airline can sell it, transit hassles aside. A Canadian airline definitely can't.

I had this in the past:

samplat

Could you add an extended stop over at ORD e.g. 7-10 days? Would NH still need to check that passenger meets Canada visa requirements if it is not a connecting flight? I don't know if this is possible nowadays but I have had guests in the past who decided to visit Canada after arriving in the US and were able to apply and get visitor visas locally.

MSPeconomist

I suspect that OP and friend have already purchased special sale tickets, so that changing the last flight to make a stopover is likely to be very expensive.

cannotfail

I guess it could possibly work out but the changing fee could be expensive.

anyway I'll dial NH to see if it's possible

s0ssos

Oh, agents don't take any risks. I was flying first to Tokyo, hadn't gotten a ticket out yet, and they said I needed a ticket out from Tokyo. Japan immigration doesn't care. The agents at the airport are stricter than the actual immigration (they also know less, don't have much power to do anything, etc).

Productivity

So basically you gamed the rules to put together a cheap fare, but didn't game them well enough and now you're upset that there's a change fee. The entitlement is astounding.

bobert24

I see a lot of astounding entitlement around here, but I don't think this is really it. He found a limited-time deal, bought it with the hopes that visas wouldn't be an issue, and now is having to work around the fact that they did become an issue. He's not saying that there shouldn't be a change fee, or that it's not fair, or blaming the airline, or anything like that. Yes, he's trying to avoid it, like any one of us would. That's not entitlement. That's responsible use of one's money.

If you want to see real entitlement, stick around FT. You won't have to wait long.

Productivity

He admits that the Canadian leg was only ever booked to lower the price... Now the Canadian leg has become a problem, he still wants a low price. Seems like entitlement to me.

Adam1222

I don't think it's entitlement as much as ignorance. Unfortunately with the rise of some of the blogs, people are doing things like booking mistake fares without the knowledge that longtime FTers and the people who did this as a hobby before people came up with the term "travel hacking"

Often1

This is a hidden city ticket fraud where the OP's friend did not think through the fact that he will not be able to make it to his intended destination because he lacks the visa for his ticketed destination.

There is an easy solution. Drop the onward segment to YUL. But, that defeats the entire purpose of having purchased the hidden city ticket in the first place. OP's friend will now pay the cost of the ORD ticket he could have originally purchased as well as whatever change fees are part of his fare rules.

s0ssos

That is not correct. This IS NOT hidden-city ticketing. This is trying to drop the YQ. Completely different things.

LondonElite

How do you know?

keitherson

This is most definitely a fuel dump: the open jaw to YUL (Canada) tricked the GDS into thinking it was a USA-Canada fare (where there is no YQ) as opposed to a USA to Thailand fare, which has YQ. These NH/UA fares were around for awhile, whether OP knowingly or unknowingly booked them. The prices after the dump makes the ticket all in of around $250 USD, in K class, if I remember correctly.

But the fact that OP never intended to take the ORD-YUL flight to Canada makes it a "hidden city" in the sense that he is throwing away the last flight. But it's an incorrect use of that term, since hidden city ticketing is usually properly priced. This fare is cheap because it was fuel dumped, not because connecting to Montreal is cheaper than going to Chicago nonstop.

OP got burned but I have very little sympathy since he knew exactly what he was doing by booking that flight to YUL.

keitherson

This is an itinerary that incorrectly pieces together two one-ways (.bomb does dumb stuff all the time), HNL-YYC (G class) and YYC-PIT (L class).

It is cabotage, and if United did not catch it, and he flew it, United could face a very heavy fine if they got caught. Canadian and US airlines have the same rights under the bilateral, and no foreign airline can fly domestic itineraries or sell connections through another country.

1353513636

But all segments are on UA. OP flew UA, a US carrier, on a US domestic route.

I've flown UA ORD-YYC-SFO before all on one ticket.