Discarding paper ticket sectors
 

Im wondering is it possible, on a paper ticket to discard the first sector of an award flight?

I know that its usually not possible (with e-tickets) as if the first sector is not flown then the whole itinerary is cancelled.

With a paper ticket would it be possible to tear off the first coupon (or 2) and just use the remainder?

No. Your reservation would still be cancelled for the remaining sectors.

It's not the e-ticket that causes problems, it's the airlines computer systems that know you've not checked in. Your paper ticket would essentially become invalid.

No! You can't do this (legally at least!) with a paper ticket either.

The airline will be well within their rights to cancel your onward booking.

OK, thanks. I thought as much anyway, but thought id double check.

As this is an award flight, it may work if you call DC and ask them to modify the trip by removing the first sector? Unless of course your connection point is in a more expensive zone and your objective is to pay less ;)

No, not saving miles... but i booked ex-DUB to save on the APD (£80) but now i cant really make the DUB outbound. Will work something out anyway.

I thought you had to pay the APT for every sector? I've had agents route me (from Dublin) through CPH or AMS (can't remember) to avoid the CDG taxes. Is this all rubbish?

APD is kind of different from airport taxes. APD is an ex-UK specific tax which Gordon Brown introduced. Its £40 in Y and £80 in C, on top of the usual airport taxes. So for reward flights it can make them quite expensive.

It can be avoided though by starting at a non-UK airport (such as DUB) and even though you route through a UK airport (a route such as DUB-LHR-LAX) you wont pay the APD

Ok, didn't think about the UK APD. Would have been a creative way to avoid that ;)

If the first segment is with BA and second with BD(AC) - would BA communicate with BD/AC to say that the first segment was not flown? Also, what happens if the last segment of a trip is not flown? Will miles still be awarded?

Would this be true even if the award was on all-BD flights? BD doesn't cancel revenue bookings if the first sector isn't flown.

Very interesting... As in fact this is an all BD booking.

BD has one-way pricing on most of its fares (except long haul). The fare isn't dependent on having to fly both/all sectors, so failure to fly the first sector doesn't trigger a re-price or cancellation.

I have no idea if this also applies to redemption tickets but if it's a BD short-haul I don't see why it would be a problem.

In any case, I thought the received wisdom on this board was that you should always book redemption trips as two one-ways so that you don't have these issues if your plans change.

On one way ticketing this is the case...i.e MAN-LHR. But for longhaul if you miss say MAN-LHR but you try to just check in for MAN-ORD you may have a nasty suprise. I assume this will be the same for reward bookings as you are charged for the whole journey and not 'per sector'.

But if you dont turn up for the DUB-LHR flight and you try to check-in at LHR instead you will be (rightfully) charged the correct APD.