Originally Posted by
kochleffel
Is it OK to use multi-city to force a connection that the DL website doesn't display, apparently because the connecting time is greater than four hours? I was looking for ELM-DTW-MSY and the only one-stop routing that it would show leaves ELM at 6:00 a.m. When I checked for a routing from ITH, one came up leaving in the afternoon and connecting to a DTW-MSY flight in the evening. I can get that flight to show up from ELM using the multi-city option, but will DL give me any trouble if I book it? I don't want to leave at 6:00 a.m., nor do I want to connect through ATL in addition to DTW if I don't have to.
You can book it as a Multi-City on one ticket. You can also book this as two separate one-ways. The advantage to the latter option is that if the price for one segment changes (drops), you can rebook that segment and get the difference back as an e-credit where is if it's all one ticket as a multi-city, you would have to reprice the whole ticket for any change. DL will protect you on back-to-back separate tickets in the event of IROPS and will even through-check bags across separate tickets when it's DL to DL (or DL to a handful of select partners).
The disadvantage to booking as separate tickets is with respect to schedule changes as a switch on one ticket will mean also having to change the other. IROPS may also get a little more complicated (though not overly so) because an agent will have to make adjustments to two tickets versus one.
ETA: I see your recent post where you said this trip is in January. There is a good chance of schedule changes between now and then so I may recommend booking as a multi-city on one ticket. Then DL can more easily treat this as ILM-MSY and if there are schedule changes, just rebook it as ILM-MSY, particularly if segments are added or changed to make for a true connection in DTW.