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-   -   Combining two cheap tickets - is this allowed? (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-france-klm-other-partners-flying-blue/1260700-combining-two-cheap-tickets-allowed.html)

MileageRunner68 Sep 20, 2011 4:34 am

Combining two cheap tickets - is this allowed?
 
New to FT, and need your help...

I am a few legs short of reaching gold, however work is not allowing me to book a nice leisure trip before the end of the year anymore and I don't want to pay through the nose just for the sake of becoming gold.

I am thinking of booking two return tickets:
1) the first one flying from A to B on day 1 in the morning and back from B to A a week later in the evening
2) the second one, booked on KLM's site for the country of place B, flying from B to A in the evening on day 1 and from A to B in the morning of the day of the return leg of ticket 1.

I would be using all flights of all tickets and as such there are no fake return tickets.

Do you think I can get away with this or will KLM try and stop it?
Am I allowed to book a ticket from a KLM site in a country other than mine (the ticket originating that particular country)?

Thank you very much in advance for your well-appreciated advice!!

Henry III Sep 20, 2011 4:48 am

I have done exactly as you plan with KLM before, without problem: booked GLA-AMS/AMS-GLA (1 week apart) from the UK website and AMS-GLA/GLA-AMS, 'nested' inside the first ticket, from the Dutch website.

I entered my FB number in both cases: the only 'issue' was that, for the second booking, the website 'knew' about my first booking and asked, "are you sure you want to make this booking?" I was sure, and did it.

All four segments were correctly credited to my account, without so much as a peep of complaint.

-- Henry

Oh, and Welcome to FlyerTalk!

KLflyerRalph Sep 20, 2011 7:20 am

I indeed heard once that the system would detect a "nested itinerary". In the case of HenryIII is only seems that it's a warning to not double book, not to prohibit it so I assume you must be fine.
Do bear in mind that should your A-B flight is delayed/cancelled, your B-A flight on the same day won't accept responsibility to put you on a later flight if you miss it.

Gajan Sep 20, 2011 8:10 am

During our chat with AF/FB staff in April they said that nesting of tickets can be done without getting slapped with cancelling of tickets etc.

andypandy Sep 20, 2011 8:15 am

well, the reason they used to care so much was not because of nesting but because you were subverting their minimum stay-away rules.
Mid-week rtn flights were much more expensive than rtns that stayed away SAT night and they had minimum stay-away times, so they could charge business people much higher fares.

But since the low cost airlines the difference is not very much so I guess they have no problem with your nested tickets.

cityflyer369 Sep 20, 2011 8:18 am

Gajan, are you saying that AF/KL have absolutely no problem with someone using the nested ticket strategy?

Regarding one of the OP's questions that has not been addressed yet: Yes, nowadays you are allowed to book a ticket from any country you wish. In principle at least. (For some problem countries KL might have some extra provisions though.)

andypandy Sep 20, 2011 8:21 am


Originally Posted by MileageRunner68 (Post 17139510)
New to FT, and need your help...



Do you think I can get away with this or will KLM try and stop it?
Am I allowed to book a ticket from a KLM site in a country other than mine (the ticket originating that particular country)?

Thank you very much in advance for your well-appreciated advice!!


You can certainly book a ticket from a country other than yours.
But AFAIK on the website you must pay in the currency of that country. If you wish yo use your own currency (to reduce credit card bills) you must book on the phone.

KLflyerRalph Sep 20, 2011 8:43 am


Originally Posted by Gajan (Post 17140281)
During our chat with AF/FB staff in April they said that nesting of tickets can be done without getting slapped with cancelling of tickets etc.

Good to know!

kevinflyaway Sep 20, 2011 1:54 pm


Originally Posted by Henry III (Post 17139541)
I have done exactly as you plan with KLM before, without problem: booked GLA-AMS/AMS-GLA (1 week apart) from the UK website and AMS-GLA/GLA-AMS, 'nested' inside the first ticket, from the Dutch website.

I entered my FB number in both cases: the only 'issue' was that, for the second booking, the website 'knew' about my first booking and asked, "are you sure you want to make this booking?" I was sure, and did it.

All four segments were correctly credited to my account, without so much as a peep of complaint.

-- Henry

Oh, and Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Did the same thing...isn't really 'wrong' I think. Just 2 separate bookings with an overlaps of dates, so fly back and forth on two different days! All segments credited correctly

MileageRunner68 Sep 20, 2011 3:13 pm

Thank you for all advice!

I have booked the tickets. Didn't get the warning message Henry mentioned...

What did surprise me is that on the second ticket I booked, originating from France (the other country), the fuel surcharge is double (!) of the fuel surcharge charged on the ticket originating from my home country. How can they justify that, as all flights are the same on both tickets :confused:

I was also surprised (in this case: pleasantly) by the fact that I didn't have to pay the credit card surcharge for the ticket booked through the French website!


Originally Posted by KLflyerRalph (Post 17140022)
Do bear in mind that should your A-B flight is delayed/cancelled, your B-A flight on the same day won't accept responsibility to put you on a later flight if you miss it.

I have more than half a day to spend at the destination between inbound and outbound flights, I should be alright in that respect.

Again, thanks to you all. What a wonderful forum FlyerTalk is. I wish I had discovered it earlier!

Meneer Guggenheimer Sep 21, 2011 4:06 pm

If you book klm tickets on other airline sites they are normally cheaper and less fees.... then on the KLM site itself.

MileageRunner68 Sep 21, 2011 4:25 pm

As posted last night, I managed to make the bookings.

But now, 24 hours later, I still haven't received the etickets! Luckily the numbers are mentioned in the booking itself on my FB page, so I think everything's ok, but I wonder why KLM didn't send them...:confused:

jmbfrance Sep 21, 2011 4:45 pm

I do not see any legal reason allowing any carrier to prohibit the sale of "nested" tickets in France.
Each ticket is an individual one.

There is an important drawback in this operation : if you miss one of your flghts, your are not protected for the other ticket, and if you miss the second flight, AF is allowed to charge your card because you dont fly the flight you are supposed to fly.

In fact, "real nested ticket" is common, I mean nested ticket issued not to circumvent the rules, but for other reasons.

For instance, you buy an ORY FDF ticket for a two weeks vacation. Then you buy an FDF Pointe à Pitre return, inside this ticket.

I sometimes bought this sort of ticket through Le Club.

NickB Sep 21, 2011 4:47 pm


Originally Posted by jmbfrance (Post 17150279)
I do not see any legal reason allowing any carrier to prohibit the sale of "nested" tickets in France.
Each ticket is an individual one.

There is an important drawback in this operation : if you miss one of your flghts, your are not protected for the other ticket, and if you miss the second flight, AF is allowed to charge your card because you dont fly the flight you are supposed to fly.

In fact, "real nested ticket" is common, I mean nested ticket issued not to circumvent the rules, but for other reasons.

For instance, you buy an ORY FDF ticket for a two weeks vacation. Then you buy an FDF Pointe à Pitre return, inside this ticket.

I sometimes bought this sort of ticket through Le Club.

It is not so much nested tickets as back to backs which are the issue. IIRC, Delta explicitly disallows back to back ticketing in its CoC but, afaik, no other airline does (although some terms could arguably be considered as implicitly referring to such practices).

jmbfrance Sep 21, 2011 5:05 pm


Originally Posted by NickB (Post 17150289)
It is not so much nested tickets as back to backs which are the issue. IIRC, Delta explicitly disallows back to back ticketing in its CoC but, afaik, no other airline does (although some terms could arguably be considered as implicitly referring to such practices).

You are right, Nick, I understand your point.

The big difference is that "legal" (I mean perfectly normal in the Company point de vue as well) nested ticket is the obvious side trip.

Another exemple : you fly ORY/LCY on wednesday (meeting in London), your return being EDI/CDG on next monday night because you have another meeting there (at EDI). You are on vacation thursday and friday, you fly to AMS, return to EDI sunday evening. I don not see any problem.

A ORY FDF return with a FDF ORY inside sounds funny because it's pretty obvious you screw the rules, but IMHO not illegal.

DL exemple : you fly CDG HNL, two weeks, and want to spend the middle week end at SFO. I suppose DL will not ask any question if you book these two tickets.


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