Originally Posted by
ksweeney
I don't understand how these 52 trips could have happened. They must have been one-way, since it is my understanding that AA automatically cancels return sides of trips where segments are missed on the outbound. Occasionally, I have the scenario where there are problems with connecting flights and I need to skip segments (e.g. STL-LAX-SAN with the last flight of the day from LAX to SAN cancels and I rent a car at LAX to drive to SAN). The first thing I do in cases like that is go the Admirals Club or call AA to get the reservation changed so that my return flights (e.g. SAN-LAX-STL) are protected. I don't think anyone should ever skip a segment on the outbound and assume the return reservation will still be intact. I've never had AA deny a request to skip a segment when the problem originated with AA or a partner carrier. I may be wrong, but my assumption is that if I didn't communicate with AA in these situations, I would have dealt with a lot of cancelled reservations over the years.
I think there is a way to do it, though only on the return portion of the flight. Let's say that the fare between PWM and ORD (with a stop at BOS) is significantly lower than the BOS-ORD nonstop. Let's also assume that the passenger lives in Boston. As you note, a PWM-BOS-ORD-BOS-PWM RT ticket won't work, because once the passenger skips the PWM-BOS flight everything else will be cancelled. But a multi-city ticket BOS-ORD-BOS-PWM with the intent to skip the last flight would work.
My example is hypothetical, but if someone skipped the same final segment on 52 flights I could see how that might attract the airline's attention.