Originally Posted by
thorthor
I want to book an award flight and it is much cheaper to book it this way:
outbound: destination A -> B -> C
inbound: C -> B -> A
Can I just book this award and use it to get from A to B and back? i.e. not use the portions B-C and C-B?
Originally Posted by
thorthor
would this still be the case if the skipped legs were with a different carrier?
This is called hidden city ticketing. There are dozens of threads on this subject all over FlyerTalk, with general discussions being found mostly in the Travel Buzz forum, and several comprehensive consolidated threads in various airline forums. Whether it works depends on a lot of variables.
JPG's answer above is correct. Whether it's triggered by skipping B>C on a roundtrip award ticket, or by missing the first leg (C>B) of a one way return award, you're not going to be getting back to point A, because B>C will be automatically cancelled once you no-show.
The carriers you're flying is irrelevant.