To clarify my above point: This is not generally correct, per the AA COC. That's only true if the A-B-A ticket uses a roundtrip excursion fare basis. Which, again, most domestic tickets do not.

An intermediate approach is to mail AArevenue accounting a check for $40 or so to assuage any guilt feelings.

Better said then what I said. There's almost 0% chance OP gamed AA, and even less that AA willingly purchased this ticket with an intent to defraud AA of a handful of dollars. C'mon guys, this isn't throwaway ticketing (as I see the title has been changed to say). This is nothing more then cancelling a return leg(s) of a flight that you can't make anymore.

I really don't get where you are coming from with that stance. If someone wants to change a ticket to an earlier flight/different connection/origin/day of the week, there's a change fee associated with that (and usually a fare difference).

If I buy an A-B ticket and can't fly it, surely you can't expect someone to have to pay some additional penalties/fees to cancel it?

Yes, thank you for the correction/clarification.

It's not my stance. I was just quoting the airline T&C party line. That doesn't mean they enforce it every time for every ticket, especially not in one-off situations.

I absolutely do not expect anyone to pay some additional penalties or fees to cancel it. Do it once, no one notices, no one cares.

My impression is the airline only cares when someone makes a habit of engaging in what they call fraudulent practices. It's not worth their time to go after the many one-timers.

Someone up thread pointed out that most domestic round-trips are a combination of two one-way fares (thanks Southwest and other LCCs who led this trend).

This would be a good point in the discussion to jump in and say that there is a big advantage to booking tickets as two one-ways rather than one round-trip: namely, that one can no-show or cancel the outbound without affecting the return segment. Obviously, this doesn't apply to OP, who wants to cancel the return segment. But we wouldn't be having this thread if the OP had booked two one-way tickets.

There are only two downsides (1) if you need to change/cancel the *entire* round-trip you would have to pay two change fees instead of one, but this assumes that paying the change fee would be worthwhile, which isn't the case on many domestic itins, and (2) in the event that you end up with a trip in vain, you will have a lot harder time getting the return trip refunded.

I book all of my personal domestic travel as one-ways. It's especially convenient if you want to book a cheap outbound fare but don't know exactly when you want to return. Unfortunately, my work has a policy against buying one-way tickets unless I save screenshots showing that it wasn't more expensive than a round-trip, so I usually book round-trips for work.

Doesn't actually mean it's enforceable either of course. People write all sorts of nonsense in contracts ... :)

I was flying JFK-LAS-CLT-JFK, I've flown the 1:00 AM redeye, LAS-CLT-JFK lots of times, it arrives the same day as dep.
About two months ago inadvertently I booked the 11:00 pm redeye arr the next day. To "fix" my error I used miles to fly FC on the 1:00 AM. I called AA EXP desk, initially they had fears that the computer would reject what I planned to do--but since my award flt deps 22 hrs prior to what I had originally booked, this caused no issues. Once I arrived in JFK, I cancelled my 11:00 pm flt--the agent thought I might have some "credit" due, at AA REFUNDS I don't see any credits...should I be looking elsewhere?

True.

Well, buying a ticket A-B-A on a round-trip excursion fare with the intention of only flying A-B one-way would be fraud. Having plans change and determining that it's less expensive to buy a new B-A ticket (or make other alternate arrangements) than to change the original ticket would not be committing fraud, it's called financial responsibility. @:-)

AA doesn't define throwaway ticketing as fraudulent practices in the CoC.

Not sure what your point might be, but they most definitely do clearly prohibit and define them as against AA/AAdv T&C.

This is the post you quoted a portion of:

Hidden City ticketing question. (to merge)
 

Hi guys, I'm new here. Me and my gf are visiting the US next month.
Earlier this year we booked on AA: LIM-DFW-ORD-HPN (long way to get to NY, but it was really cheap), which is one-way. My return ticket is EWR-FLL-LIM on JB.

As we are visiting many US cities (New York, Denver, Kansas City, Charlotte) we could visit them in any order.

The thing is that the most cost effective route right now is: MCI-DEN-CLT-NYC, for that I would have to take a DFW-MCI flight (on AA also), skipping the ORD-HPN leg of the first booking.

I know that bags have to be collected at DFW and cleared through customs...is it possible to just walk away with my luggage to other terminal at that airport?

CreativeApparel, welcome to FlyerTalk! As your proposed routing appears to be with AA-operated flights, rather than United, let me move your post to FlyerTalk's AA forum, for more discussion.

Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, United forum.

The issue is not so much dropping the DFW-ORD leg.

The problem is (if I have it right), AA's system won't let you have two flights at the same time. Your DFW-MCI flight will be overlapping with your DFW-ORD-HPN flight and I think the system will cancel it.