stevietommo

Hi all - i'm looking for a cheap price to oz in Aug - LHR to Perth seems to be around the £3200 pp business with Cathy. However if you do ARN (stockholm) - Perth (which flys back to london then on) is only £2000!

i'm new to this so a couple of questions

1) if i was to book the ARN flight - i assume i have to get the plane at stockholm - i cant get on at LHR?
2) if that is the case - on the return flight - do i have to do the last leg? back to stockholm?
3) is there any reason why (when its a longer flight) its 33% cheaper to fly from ARN?

onobond

1. No, missing the first segment forfeits the rest of the reservation.
2. In formality, yes. In reality, BA seems not to bother, so for the occasional jumping of the last leg very small risk of any complications. Making it a habit may alter the odds, but many in the FT fora seems to get away with it, four or more times per year. It's good to know that the airline legally has the right to reprice the ticket according to segments flown.
3. The ticket price is not necessary proportional to the distance. Hang around here and in the TP-run thread, and you'll find many good deals travelling ex-EU. This phenomenon is not specific for BA.

APUBleed

2. I'm trying to understand what in practice this could look like if you've already paid for the fare - they send you a bill in the mail? I don't understand how they could possibly re-price at the end.

RB211

If they wanted to do it, that's probably exactly what it would look like. Followed by closure of your FF account with forfeiture of all balances/coupons etc when you don't pay. I haven't heard of BA doing it, but I have heard of some US airlines being pretty aggressive when such tickets have been abused.

rb211.

onobond

Most of us don't pay air tickets with small, unmarked bills. Your CC info is in their system, of course. No personal knowledge of anyone having had retro-claims for this reason, but a TA, well known on BAFT, evidently was found by BA to have sold many ex-EU tix, where pax skipped last leg, and held them economically responsible. Haven't seen the final outcome of this. Anyone better informed on this matter, please enlighten us.

onobond

Spot on there, the US carriers are eagerly tracking a variation on the theme, "hidden city ticketing", where a ticket AAA-BBB is more expensive than AAA-BBB-CCC. Finding someone that repeatedly buys the latter ticket, but never flies the second segment, means a severe risk of experiencing exactly the procedure you describe.

RB211

If an airline charged an amount in addition to the originally quoted price, I believe that would get reversed pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure it's against business' agreement with the credit card companies, and the card holder is not agreeing to some "unknown surcharge" when they provide their CC info. If airlines really cared about this (i.e. if it really cost them a significant amount) they would authorize an additional known amount as a "deposit" and then refund that after the last leg is flown, a la some car rentals, hotel reservations etc. But they don't, because it's not really that big of a problem on the grand scheme of things.

rb211.

RB211

Indeed. And it has been said that such people trying to game the system get pretty upset when IROPS causes them to be rebooked, and the airline reroutes them either directly AAA-CCC or AAA-DDD-CCC and they end up somewhere they really don't want to be!

rb211.

Blueboys999

I concur with the good advice you have been given on that point but would add that having checked bags makes that practice a little more difficult than it once was. I invariably see warnings on airline sites relating to the potential for additional charges if bags are not checked through to the ticket final destination. Again, I don't read much on that being enforced on here but it indicates that the airlines are at least looking to discourage it.

binman

Tell that to hotels who have been doing this for decades. You check out, settle the bill and then mysteriously a few days later £XX or $YY appears and you have to deal with the fall out.

As a once or twice a year ex EU traveller I follow the advice on here with regard to last segments. Always book the last segment for much later the same day or ideally over night within the 24 hour rule. Switch from LHR to XYZ to LGW to XYZ as you must get your bags back at LHR.

Worse case scenario take the flight and enjoy a few days in a civilised relaxed European capital with all the cultural and social benefits that brings. Then return to dear old blighted blighty!

To be honest In the last 10 years I have never once been challenged in the USA or Asia when requesting that my bags only be shipped to LHR. I have had multiple EU To Hawaii flights and many EU to Asia. The biggest issue now is getting BA to tag bags BA to BA on separate tickets so they are just best avoided.

QR have a very clear rule that bags cannot be tagged to DOH when transiting, irrespective of the transit time unless a specific stopover has been booked. To my knowledge that is rigorously enforced but there may be others who know more

stevietommo

Thanks all... As always great advice!

Calchas

I don't want to get into this, but can we say that not everyone agrees that this is the legal situation.

Ldnn1

bitterproffit

I did a similar open jaw flight from OSL-PER on Cathay. (OSL-AMS-HKG with a 4 day stopover and then on to PER)

The return was PER-HKG-LHR-CPH

I was planning on getting off in LHR.

When I checked in for my return flight at PER, Cathay had re-routed me onto PER-HKG-HEL (on Finnair)- CPH.

Apparently the PER-HKG flight was going to come in too late to catch the HKG-LHR flight.

I was appreciative that Cathay was proactive enough to rebook me on a flight that got me into CPH 4 hours earlier, but my LHR plans were dashed.

I never did make it to London, but I enjoyed a few days in Copenhagen.

Then I did a quick jump back to LHR for my flight back to the US.

You can do it, just be flexible if your flight changes.

Calchas

If you are rebooked, you are not obliged to accept the offered rerouting. There is usually some scope for alternative planning. It is usually best to do the legwork yourself, figure out the options you'd accept, rather than ask the agent to do it.

There are many CX flights every day between HKG and LHR, I cannot say for sure without being there and looking at the loads, but I suspect if you were insistent about it your original route could be restored.

I agree fundamentally, when flying, you have to be flexible.