cleome

Hi,
I am planning to book NRT-SFO-SEA-SFO-NRT with US Airways award miles. There is a distinct possibility that I wouldn't be able to fly the SEA-SFO segment. In such a case, can I inform the airline before hand and still use the SFO-NRT segment? I am confused by US Airways' rules.

AZ Travels the World

I think is extremely unlikely an agent would make such an exception, as it would require a re-issue of the partner ticket so they'd essentially just be doing the reissue without charging you. That's not an every day occurrence at US.

If you just skipped the segment, your ticket would most likely be canceled some hours after you did it, so you definitely don't want to just go for it.

I would call US and ask them if they would make such a change. Be prepared for them to say yes, but only by your paying the $150 change fee to have the ticket re-issued. If I was going to skip that segment, that's what I would do.

pbuntrock

It's not a US problem, it's an any airline problem. Skip a segment, ticket gets canceled. You need to rebook the ticket.

PaceLaw2012

Perhaps you should just book the NRT-SFO r/t w/ miles and use cash to find a cheap SFO-SEA tix; maybe on Southwest so its fully changable?

markus_see

I asked a similiar question few days ago.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/us-ai...eg-flight.html

I am wondering if anyone ever experience that even after the computer has cancel the rest of the sectors/legs and reservation, the airline staff was helpful enough to help reinstate back at your boarding point.

Also, is the technology really that efficient that they will auto cancel the rest of the reservations (is it possible to trick the computer by doing some sort of online-web check in) ? Hmmm...

I wonder why airlines like to make our life so complicated. sigh....

phlwookie

Yes, but it's usually when it's their fault, such as from irregular ops. For instance, once I was flying to GSO via CLT. My CLT-GSO flight, last of the day, was to be many hours late and I told them I'd prefer to rent a car and just drive the 85 miles one way. They told me that was fine, they'd note it in the record, but 1) save the receipt and 2) call once I got there to be sure the computer didn't autocancel. It of course did, but it was reinstated with a quick call thanks to this planning.

It checks who boards the flight, not who checks in. This is one reason boarding passes get scanned at the gate.

The business logic goes like this: Competition might mean that the price of a round trip flight from PHL-CLT is $500. You want to fly it but you find that PHL-CLT-GSO is only $250 round trip. To prevent you from booking that and skipping the CLT-GSO-CLT flights and removing $250 of revenue, the airline drops the rest of your itinerary when you no show for CLT-GSO. They then can resell the seat for a price the market's willing to bear, and if you actually want to return on CLT-PHL, you need to buy a new ticket.

While this can be inconvenient when it happens due to irregular ops, I'm more forgiving of the airlines for blocking this behavior, known as hidden city ticketing. They're in the business of selling transportation between two points, and they do need to protect against someone trying to game the system to go somewhere else along the way for a lower price.

geo1005

Accept the fact that if you skip a segment, the rest of the itinerary will be canceled.

In the case of the OP's NRT-SFO-SEA-SFO-NRT routing, I would book/change the award to NRT-SFO-SEA and then return SFO-NRT. That is an open jaw award and perfectly within the rules of the US DM program. As mentioned by others, if you may actually need to fly from SEA to SFO, just book an entirely separate ticket for that one leg.

thomwithanh

Indeed. I almost learned this the hard way when I was in college. I ended up getting alternate transportation to GSP to my (then) significant other's. Tried to use the return segment on NW and... uh-oh. Agent at check-in was an angel and quietly re-booked me under an IRROPS code but I certainly learned my lesson there...

geo1005

In my experience, you would be foolish to even attempt this. The likelihood that you end up with no valid ticket AND the responsibility to get home at your own expense is the most likely outcome.

erik123

Is is when the reservation systems are linked (which they mostly are) - but there are exceptions - mostly small regional carriers that aren't part of an alliance.

phlwookie

Exceptions will be rare enough that it's not worth taking the risk, even on flights outside of an alliance booked on the same ticket (e.g., US with a connection on DL - yes, they are possible to book).

dtremit

Indeed...in these situations, the auto-cancel usually works flawlessly, but reinstatement is nearly impossible.