Originally Posted by
SJC1K
Not that this is what you're asking about, but I have gotten airlines to let me do something like this during irregular ops.
Years ago I was flying SJC-LAX-TUS on DL on the day before Thanksgiving. I got to LAX to find that my flight had been cancelled and the only alternative was delayed by several hours. I figured that I could rent a car one-way, drive to TUS, and get there before I would arrive by air even if everything went right from that point on. I went to the GA and said "I'd like to miss my flight to TUS and drive there instead, but I still want to use the return flight. Can you cancel my LAX-TUS flight in such a way that I can do that?" The LAX GA was only too happy to do that--one fewer disserviced pax to deal with. (Then I called the DL 800 number to make sure my record had been annotated correctly before I left the secured area, since I didn't want any surprises on my return!)
Similarly, if they change the flight times significantly, you can ask them to drop segments without cancelling the rest of your itin.. For instance, Mrs. Ripper3785 wanted to fly PHX-LAX to catch a LAX-HNL on a different ticket. Well it was significantly cheaper to fly TUS-PHX-LAX, so she booked that.. They changed the flight times (I think by 45 min)and she said that would not work and asked them to drop 1st segment so she didn't have to drive to TUS to catch a flight back to PHX. It worked.