One way on round trip ticket
 

I need two one way tickets when returning from a cruise to Hawaii. The round trip tickets are much less expensive. If I buy round trip tickets and only use the one way and toss the rest will AA track me down for a penalty. They will have my AAdvantage number so it would be easy to find me. Anyone have experince with this?

I think I have seen this discussed before but did a search and couldn't find anything.

I assume you mean you need one-way tickets for 2 people, and not 2 one-way ticekts for one person. If it's the former, just call your cruise line - all the cruise fares I've ever seen are one-way fares (and much cheaper than a published one way fare).

Sorry, I meant one way tickets for 2 people. And the cruiseline is not cheaper. Since we are staying in the islands for a while after the cruise. The airline one-way airfare is about the same as an AA round trip. Not to mention the possibility of an AA upgrade and the high risk that the cruiseline would book us on United.

It's called "Throwaway ticketing" actually, and is against AA C of C
 

From American's Conditions of Contract:

"TICKET VALIDITY - COMPLIANCE WITH TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE
Tickets are valid for travel only when used in accordance with all terms and conditions of sale. Terms and conditions of sale include but are not limited to:

The passenger's itinerary, as stated on the ticket or in the passenger's reservation record,
Any requirement that the passenger stay over a specified date or length of time (for example, Saturday night or weekend) at the destination specified on the ticket.
Any special purpose or status (for example, age in the case of senior citizen or children's discounts, military status in the case of a military fare, official government business in the case of a government fare, or attendance at a qualified event in the case of a meeting or convention fare) that entitles the passenger to a special or reduced rate, or
Any other requirement associated with the passenger's fare level.
Unless a ticket is reissued by American or its authorized agent upon payment of applicable charges, or an authorized representative of American waives applicable restrictions in writing, a ticket is invalid:

If used for travel to a destination other than that specified on the ticket,
If the passenger fails to comply with applicable stay-over requirements,
If the passenger does not meet the purpose or status requirement associated with the fare category on the ticket, or
If American determines that the ticket has been purchased or used in a manner designed to circumvent applicable fare rules.
American specifically prohibits the practices commonly known as:

Back to Back Ticketing: The combination of two or more roundtrip excursion fares end to end for the purpose of circumventing minimum stay requirements.

Throwaway Ticketing: The usage of roundtrip excursion fare for one-way travel, and

Hidden City/Point Beyond Ticketing: Purchase of a fare from a point before the passenger's actual origin or to a point beyond the passenger's actual destination.

Where a ticket is invalidated as the result of the passenger's non-compliance with any term or condition of sale, American has the right in its sole discretion to:

Cancel any remaining portion of the passenger's itinerary,
Confiscate unused flight coupons,
Refuse to board the passenger or check the passenger's luggage, or
Assess the passenger for the reasonable remaining value of the ticket, which shall be no less than the difference between the fare actually paid and the lowest fare applicable to the passenger's actual itinerary"

Some options:
Pay asking price - if you are caught in throwaway ticketing, they can charge you the one way price.
Check prices first, and the availability of open-jaw tickets (to your cruise origin, back from the cruise destination.)
As mentioned before, check with your cruise line.
Buy a cheaper one-way ticket using a carrier like TZ / WN (AATA or American Trans Air, combined with Southwest - which codeshares with ATA on a number of flights, including ATA's Hawai'i flights, since ATA is basically Southwest's vassal airline.) (If you do, you way want to write AA to tell them you have honored their conditions of carriage and spent your money on another airline. :p )

Where you usually are going to get in trouble with throwaways is if you are doing it frequently (to the point AA flags your account for repeatedly unflown segments) or you are buying two round trip tickets and using them like one-way tickets.

(Example - a Saturday night stay is much cheaper than the ticket I need so I buy DFW-ORD and ORD-DFW RTs both with Saturday night stays but just use the first portions of each ticket giving me a cheaper round trip with two throw aways - or worse, booking the second half of both tickets to come back at a later point - so doing DFW-ORD (ORD-DFW-ORD) ORD-DFW.)

That said, I've done a TRUE throwaway on occasion. Example - I flew DFW-AUS for a conference and had colleagues who were driving back AUS-DFW so I rode with them a day later rather than changing my flight. I called AA and explained what I was doing and they were fine with it.

My advice would be to proceed with caution in doing anything like this. The worse case scenario is that they can come back and charge you the full fare (no discounts) for the one-way fare and possibly even close your AAdvantage account. In reality, if its a one time thing your risks are lower but still definitely present.

I have to disagree with all of the above.

Nothing will happen - PERIOD!

As stated by Techgirl - the ONLY time the airlines have any recourse and may, and that's the magic WORD - MAY follow up on this is when it's done on a regular basis, and the only time I have ever heard of a follow up was when a TA was sued by NWA couple of years ago for doing this for his clients all the time and actually suggesting/recommending this. To be honest with you, I'm not even sure if NWA won that lawsuit. On an individual basis, doing it here or there, NOTHING, and I will guarantee it!

Think about this possibility - I walk up to the counter, buy a R/T with cash, and never use the return - what is the airline police going to do?

Thanks
 

Thanks for all the input. I knew this was against the AA rules which is why I was asking the question - I needed to know how this worked in reality.

For those suggesting the cruiseline, I did check. The cruiseline charges extra fees if you do not fly home the same day as the cruise ends. Unless you book a hotel through the cruiseline. Also not a good deal on the hotel. I had also checked the other airlines so knew that was an option.

The way it worked out is

through cruiseline ~$600
one way on AA ~$900
round trip on AA ~$600
HA or ATA one way ~$350


So option is either a round trip on AA or another airline.

I want to thank everyone for the input.

Give you a wonderful 'SSSS' boarding pass :D

How About this.Actually Happened.Yesterday I booked and was ticketed (120,000 Award First Class)SFO/SIN,I explained to the agent that I would only be traveling the one way to SIN as I would be boarding a cruise ship (Part of world Cruise) And would not be returning from ASIA/PACIFIC area.I will be debarking the ship in DXB and therefore would be returning to USA from Middle East,Hopefully on Emirates A340-500.After discussing the request with a supervisior he informed me that he would have to make it a RT ticket even if I didn't use the return (2nd) part.I said "Gee that takes the opportunity away from somebody wanting to book SIN/SFO".He then asked what return date I wanted at this point I told him you pick one.Anyone looking at the dates would think I was on a weekend MR.This was booked as *alliance.I was also informed that additional mileage would be required for the return from DXB (140K F) USA.Past experience with CX- HKG/LAX was (80K F)And done as one way.Any comments?Can those in the know say what is correct.

I'm guessing you have never had your FF account suspended and have lost all of your miles for doing this, have you? I know two people (one posts here) who have.

We also had a throwaway ticketing thing going at our office for a while where our agents were booking us on circumvented routings to keep costs down. At the time, a 14 day advance DFW-SEA/PDX/SFO/SJC/etc. flight on AA was running over $1000 (about four years ago) and AUS-SEA/PDX/SFO/SJC/etc. was running under $300. We would buy two tickets - DFW-AUS and then AUS-other city (usually back through DFW). So a ticket to SEA might look like DFW-AUS-DFW-SEA-DFW-AUS-DFW. Legal ticket. My colleagues were stepping off in DFW and not flying the last two legs (i.e. the last segment on each ticket). Over a one month period of time, someone from AA met several of them at the gate and told them that they could either take the DFW-AUS-DFW flights or be subject to AA re-faring the tickets.

So... I speak from near first-hand experience that AA will go after passengers for this. They won't do it the first time... but its also not something I would do more than once or twice without some hesitation.

That's always the possibility, but as posted by many here before, the "SSSS" treatment is really nothing to fear and in fact it may get you through the stupidity quicker and also it's not automatic. In 2004 I paid cash for a ticket to Thailand and did no receive the "SSSS" treatment at all.

Another example..... I had to cross over to the dark side during my recent trip. UA was the cheapest for the 1/2 hour flight, and also AA did not fly the outbound route on the day I needed to, so I bought cheapest possible UA ticket from Expedia. The outbound was a joke. We were delayed for few hours, sitting on a tarmac because of this and that and mechanicals and this and that. The crew handled it well, but being delayed for hours on a 1/2 hour flight is no fun. Then for the return, I got to the airport about 2 hours before and the 1 line for economy was about 1/2 mile long. I kind of expected it so I walked up and decided to just go along with the game. About 1/2 hour later, we have not moved at all. I looked at the AA counter and there was hardly anybody there. Walked over to the ticket counter, paid $79 or something similar for 1 way, checked in within 15 minutes (although this has nothing to do with TSA, as it was a foreign country, but there is a reason for my story), and had time to actually enjoy couple of beers in the secured area. The girl who was behind me in the UA line moved about 10 feet by the tme I was walking to the security area with my AA BP. I just assumed that the return ticket value with UA was non-existent and rightly so. I just returned home from this long trip and there is a voucher from UA in my mailbox for $100. I'm pretty sure its for the delay, not a refund for the missed flight, but the fact remains that UA knows I never made the return yet they did not punish me, and to top it off gave me a voucher for the outbound delay. BTW, I thought it was very classy of UA to do that. I never complained, and I'm nobody with UA. The total cost of the UA R/T was only ~$80 all in. I guess there is a UA flight in my future.......The voucher is good until 3/17/07. :D

Does anybody have any experience with this on partner flights? I.e. BA? I've done this 5 or 6 times in the last year and a half on J flights to Asia though LHR. I book a RT BOS-LHR, a OW to DUS and then book RT to HKG via DUS. My routing is BOS-LHR-DUS-LHR-HKG-LHR-(DUS)-BOS This has saved me several thousand dollars on me and my employees tickets. The only worry I've had is checking the bags to LHR and not through to DUS on the way back. If they ever deney that request I'm screwed! Barring that, will BA ever come after me? I book the tickets through AA.com usually. Now I'm worried! :confused:

EXP - From what I can tell from your post, you are flying all your segments and nested itineraries are perfectly legal - folks do them all the time to get from point A to point B.

Where it would potentially be a problem would be if you were throwing away some of your segments and not using them at all - thus creating a different final routing than what was intended by your ticketing.

agree with techgirl.

Follow the warning already given, DON'T make it a habit.

Well, I am throwing away the last portion of my ticket from LHR-DUS. Instead I take the flight back to BOS.