Nominal

Hey everyone,

I have a return flight booked, but will need to arrive at my destination at an earlier date, which is why I have decided to book an earlier one way flight on a different airline (flying out of a different country as originally planned) but I would want to use the return flight of my air berlin ticket nonetheless.

I was told at the phone that this is indeed possible, but I cannot find any written confirmation of this. Does anyone have any experience herewith or knows whether this is indeed possible?

I really cannot risking being denied boarding/checking in because my connecting flights depend on this leg.

Thanks!

bhomburg

This will not work, except if you booked a FlyFlex fare. Even with those, you still will need to cancel and rebook as one-way. If you throw away your outbound without canceling, your return will be invalidated.

ABs T&C on partial refunds:
For partial refunds of a booking, the one-way fare available for the flight taken at the time of booking is to be used as the basis for calculating the amount to be refunded.

Often1

As soon as you "miss" any segment of your ticket, the remaining segments will all be cancelled and will retain whatever value they retain under the fare rules applicable to the ticket's purchase.

It is remotely possible that you purchased a very expensive ticket on AB originating in Germany which permits you to fly segments out of order. You would know if you had purchased such a ticket.

Nominal

I bought the cheapest fare and was guaranteed by 2 of ABs employees that it is possible to miss it and still fly the return, this since several years

Yoshi212

This since several years...?

bhomburg

That strikes me as extremely unusual and highly unlikely. Most likely, you have been given wrong information by call center staff.
Contact ABs customer service via their web form at https://www.airberlin.com/en/site/kontaktformular_a.php (select 'your booking /special services', then 'rebooking' from the drop-down menu) and wait for their reply before continuing with your plan, so you have this information in writing.

Moootz

If it's booked in FlyClassic, it will definitely work. I missed flights on AB several times and was always able to take the 2nd or 3rd segment of the ticket.
I was told that that wouldn't work in FlyDeal but nobody actually reported a cancellation of the remaining ticket so it may even work with FlyDeal.

SK2751

There might also be a difference between long haul and short haul. If could swallow the cost of emergency transportation in case they deny boarding, I would probably take the risk.

Non-NonRev

And AB does sell one way fares far more frequently than the Euro or US legacies. Maybe the original booking is two one ways sold as a "return" trip.

Quokka77

Dear All, I am in the same position as the original poster. I want to cancel the outbound / first leg of my discount Y (W and Z) multicity and keep the return leg. I rang AB USA call centre tonight and was given the same advice by the agent: "we can cancel the outbound leg for you if you like, and you can keep the second leg". I pushed them, as I that's not usually possible for most discount airline tickets. The agent's word were: "we do not enforce the no show rule", and then, "I am adding a note to your booking and I guarantee we will not touch this booking to cancel it". Too good to be true? I'm thinking of booking a second ticket with Avios on the same flight and cancelling it if the call centre confirm I still have a valid booking after the date of the original flight. Anyone done this before?

erik123

As with AB here, there are exceptions. It has been reported that VS also offered this as an option a few years back (even on dirt cheap tickets) but not sure if they still do.

Quokka77

It worked. I missed the first leg, and flew the second leg, no problems. Thanks AB, you're awesome (although the leg room was terrible).