Originally Posted by
Often1
If you simply no show for your JFK-LAS flight, you should expect to have the remaining segments of your ticket cancelled and then retain whatever value they have under the ticket's fare rules. That may well be $0. Anything else is pure luck. Period.
What should happen is whatever the fare rules state - depending on no-show provision. That in some regions a cancellation and retain of value may be common for journeys originating in the USA, but is not common elsewhere.
In many cases, with a no show, there is a higher change fee or cancel penalty than if changed/cancelled before scheduled time of departure, but is a long way short of what is claiming to be expected
as far as it being a 98% chance that a change with no change fee or fare difference applied ( unless there is no change fee and fare difference ), I would say that this is 2% less than I would expect.
To OP - I would start by phoning EK and simply asking how much to make the desired change and if it is a high amount, look at how much to go to LAS and then by a r/t from LAS-NYC and whether there is a saving that makes it worthwhile ( taking into account the long time wasted travelling )