Originally Posted by
BOS1971
interesting.
So then, if one were to book a fare with a longer than 4 hour layover by constructing 2 legs (like multi-city in the search), and there were IRROPS on the first flight, can the second be rebooked without having to pay a fare difference?
Wrong terminology. You are not booking a single fare when layover is longer than 4 hours for US48. It's a broken fare (a separate fare for each leg, instead of single fare based on O&D) booked on one ticket. If there were IRROPs on first flight, yes, they would reaccomodate you on the second when the two fares are booked on one ticket. Schedule changes would also potentially permit free changes to one or both fares when booked on one ticket. Although it may be cheaper to purchase fares on separate tickets instead of a single one due to end-on-end fare combination restrictions on cheaper fares. If you use Google Flights multi-city search, it will alert you if it would be cheaper to purchase the fares on separate tickets instead of a single one.
Savings are usually not all that significant. The below would save $39 if flights were booked separately as an L fare + K fare vs. 2 K fares on one ticket. The L fare on DTW-ATL requires A-B-A end-on-end combinations and can't be booked as part of an A-B-C routing.
