I'm coordinating several sisters going to Norway next summer. We are coming from three home airports in the US. Coming from MSP and PHX, the transatlantic portion of our trip is on SAS out of EWR. But I can't for the life of me get my sister coming from TUL through EWR and then on the same SAS flight. I've tried kayak, travelocity, orbitz doing a multi-city booking. I know she can book two separate flights (TUL-EWR and EWR-OSL) but it would be best if all legs are on one ticket rather than two.
Any ideas on how to make this happen? Since the two airlines (United and SAS) are both Star Alliance, could we call after booking two separate tickets and somehow link/combine them?
BTW our dates are July 10-24, 2013 if that helps. We can't really change the tickets out of MSP because they are award tickets so that is the route that the others are trying to match - meeting in EWR for the flight to OSL.
I would suggest that you call SAS or an old style bricks and mortar travel agent. A quick booking request on the SAS website shows direct connection on the outbound, but routing through CPH on the return on the website. The connection on the return can be forced through OSL, should be no problems.
I would NOT recommend booking two tickets and asking to "combine" them unless 1.there is a long time between transits and 2. the traveller is willing to take onboard ALL responsibility and costs should a misconnect occur, even if it is the fault of the airline. You can ask the airlines to link two tickets but in reality this only means that they make a note on each of the tickets that you are continuing travel on a separate ticket. This in no way or form constitutes a guaranteed connection, nor does the airline take any responsibility for actually making the connection you propose.
Note from TUL there will be quite long layovers between flights, OKC is a better option, or adding extra connections via ORD for instance.
Last edited by THD; Aug 29, 12 at 2:39 am..
Reason: spelling
Two sisters from MSP have booked award tickets through United with the transatlantic portion on SAS.
The sister coming from TUL decided to book her ticket through Orbitz. She found an itinerary that connects with our transatlantic flight on SAS (unfortunately she has a long layover at EWR, but that was her choice).
So now I have to book two sisters out of PHX. I can locate an itinerary on kayak that connects with our SAS flight out of EWR. Kayak gives me the options of booking through SAS, Orbitz, cheaptickets, airfare.com, Expedia or Travelocity. Any recommendations? I could get 2x UR points by booking through the UR Mall with Travelocity.
I feel a bit dumb asking this question, but I know that booking two separate tickets on two separate airlines is not a good idea. BUT, is there some assurance or "protection" when booking via Orbitz or Travelocity and the itinerary is on two separate airlines?
Assuming that you book two separate tickets, you are doing it under your own risk and OTA won't help you in case of delays. When buying separate tickets, get good travel insurance which covers missing a flight because earlier flight delayed because of weather, mechanical issues etc. Leave at least 4 hours between flights (more if there are few flights between the cities) and checkin online for all the flights. Make sure you can change the dates of transatlantic flights.
