I agree with those who see a difference.
I would expect the airline to object to this:
AAA-BBB
..BBB-AAA
..[Saturday night]
..AAA-BBB
BBB-AAA
but not to this:
AAA-BBB
..BBB-CCC
..[Saturday night]
..CCC-BBB
BBB-AAA
Of course, I don't think they really have any cause to complain about either, after all their argument is that with cheap tickets we give up flexibility, changeability, refundability, blah, blah, blah. That said, I think the difference (in airline rules) is that in the first case you're returning to your point of origin. I disagree with the airlines.
I actually did the latter in 1995. YOW-[Wed]BWI-[Fri]BOS-[Tue]BWI-[Tue]YOW. I thought of it and asked the company travel agent. I expected to get two separate tickets, but the four segments were on one ticket (USAir). It was about C$600 versus C$1200 to go YOW-BWI-BOS-YOW on USAir. I was in Baltimore for two days on the way out, but only about an hour on the way back (it was just to save the money).
I had an interesting conversation with a CP agent yesterday. We were chatting about things (I was in the process of booking all my B fares through December so I guess she could give me some time
. One thing that came up was how high YOW-YVR is without a Saturday ($3000, more than YOW-YVR-LAX) and she mentioned back-to-back (the first example above).
She said that if I asked for it, she wouldn't necessarily refuse to sell me interlocking tickets (b-t-b). I suggested to her that if I were doing it through a travel agent, I'd go with two airlines, but if I bought both from her, I didn't think CP could refuse to honour the tickets. And I do think that would stand up, in court if necessary: if I have two back-to-back tickets issued by the airline on the same phone call, I believe there's an implied acceptance of my itinerary on their part.
They could refuse to honour the ticket if issued by an agent, or even if self-issued on their site, but if a human representative of CP gives me those two itineraries at the same time, I think they're stuck with them. Comments?
Thanks!
andrew