Nesting Question
 

AC (and other airlines) note it is illegal. Can they detect it automatically through their systems and/or do they do manual checks and/or do sharp eyed checkin clerks pick it up? Trying to obey Ferrari's 11th Commandment.

Once I openly called AC reservations to book two 'nested' tickets simultaneously. the clerk referred me to a supervisor, who cleared the tickets. When I went to the airport check-in counter to purchase them, a very frowning and unhappy clerk issued the tickets, saying they should not have been issued. However, she took my money and printed the tickets. In using them, I had absolutely no problems.
My sense here is that if you are using nested tickets, discretion is the best policy but the chance of getting 'caught' is slim. The biggest problems could occur if you try to change/cancel the tickets, and then the most likely 'serious' penalty is being required to pay the appropriate (sometimes very high) fare difference. I've never heard of the police being called for this 'offence' (or the other 'crimes' like throwaway or hidden city ticketing).

Maybe I am a little naived but could someone explain what nesting is?

marbuck, thanks for the input. My only problem has been when I have used tickets out of sequence. For example, I used to buy BDA-YYZ-YVR-YYZ-BDA J tickets. Ticketed from origin in BDA the ticket was cheaper, no taxes etc.

However, if I started in YYZ then Coupon #1 was used after #2 & #3 and had to be presented detached.

So now we add the marbuck discretion rule to the Ferrari 11th Commandment.

Nested tickets are (by example)


Monday Oct 13 YYZ-LGA 7:00 a.m.
Monday Oct 20 LGA-YYZ 7:00 p.m.

Monday Oct 13 LGA-YYZ 7:00 P.M.
MONDAY oCT 20 YYZ-KGA 7:00 A.M.

THE TIMES ARE DEPARTURE TIMES
2 CHEAP TICKETS SATURDAY NIGHT STAY

VS

2 TORONTO-LGA EXPENSIVE ONE DAY TRIPS

Legal/illegal...I'm not so sure.

We had this discussiona few months ago, and AC seems to take a pretty relaxed view, unless you are doing it specifically to avoid things like Saturday night stay requirements, etc.

In the late 90s, I often bought a three month ticket LHR-YYZ-LHR, outbound in June, back in September, and then bouught a few YYZ-LHR-YYZ tickets because they were cheaper from Toronto. You can't tell me that AC can stop me from doing this, since there are any number of reasons why I might decide to go back and forth a bit.

I really think it depends on circumstances, and there is some leeway built into the system.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I am not so sure the airline has a real leg to stand on for a couple reasons, what if you brought a ticket to go LHR-YVR for say 2 weeks...then during your stay urgent business came up and you had to go back to the uk for say 3 days..

Well thats nesting.....

Plus would a judgement fall to the airlines who are know to offer the most unfair contracts in the world...

I would be careful cause as we all know, AC would spend a dollar to save a cent.

Well, there is a big difference between 'nesting' and using tickets out of sequence.
The former works, with discretion. The latter invites problems because the airline computer will show either the out of place or missed segments on the ticket. Note I am referring to one ticket -- if nesting is done right, you should have two tickets. I don't know why you should (if you plan things right) ever need to use out of sequence tickets.
As Ferarri points out, properly done, 'nesting' is in that wonderful grey area. It can be technically and structurally 'legal' in many situations. It gets more complicated when intended as an end run on the saturday stayover rules; but it appears AC is reasonably tolerant if you don't make too much noise!

The big difference in your example, ferrari, is that the inside ticket is being purchased after the commencement of travel. If the return on the original ticket cannot be changed, then it is appropriate to by a nested return, and that's perfectly kosher.

Another clean example is third city nesting. In fact, this is the basis of the "hidden city" rule in international tariff construction.

Nesting, itself, does not violate the ticketing rules per se. What violates the ticketing rules is back to back ticketing, where you use the nesting to avoid the higher fare rules applicable to the true routing.

So what is considered the difference between nesting and back to back tickets?

Simon

Back to back is when you buy the nesting tickets at the same time to bracket a Saturday night.

if you buy a "legitiumate" nesting ticket after the original "legitimate" ticket, it is not back to back. The nested ticket does not even have to bracket a Satuirday night.

e.g. I go to MIA from YYZ for two weeks. When I am there, it turns out I have to go back to YYZ for a day. That ticket is nested but not back to back. It may not even be a discount one. I was not doing it to take advantage of fare rules

marbuck, perhaps Empress or someone else can respond but part of my initial query was whether or not the computer "sees" missing segments. Also, not to be too argumentative but I am paying separately for each segment of travel so why should I not be allowed to use tickets out of sequence?

All I can tell you is that if you don't do this regularly and fly all the segments (and not do throwaway ticketing), then you'll be fine. Don't establish a trend for them to catch you.

Empress, thanks for the info but why is throaway ticketing such a no no and how can they catch it so easily?

Because from an airline point of view, you are not giving them the revenue that you should be. (Whether this idea actually make sense is another story) So if you live in YVR and wanted to go to LHR, you could be doing things like SEA-YVR-LHR-YVR-SEA then throw away the YVR-SEA segment and save $400 compared to doing things like YVR-LHR-YVR. In the airline's world, they feel that you should have paid them the cost of YVR-LHR-YVR instead.

Winnipeg (AC accounting) will look for 'weird' ticketing practices like this. Especially these days when everyone has a frequent flyer number, it's not hard to track your bookings.

[This message has been edited by Empress (edited 10-03-2003).]

What?! Are you crazy? That's, like, 500 status miles.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I was in that position few months ago. I did a SEA-Asia and really wanted to skip the YVR-SEA segment. I ended up doing it for the 500 Q miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif