Technique for skipping final flight leg
 

I have an upcoming trip OSL - LHR - HKG - MNL and return. Flights are CX and booked via www.cathaypacific.com, although the OSL-LHR and LHR-OSL flights are operated by BA.

I live in London, and booked the flight as (i) it was by far the cheapest route, and (ii) I have intended to visit Oslo for some time. My intention was to spend a few days in Oslo on the way out, and then only fly to LHR on the return, dropping the final leg to OSL.

The connection on the return LHR - OSL fight is less than two hours.

Since booking the trip, there have been a number of "ex-EU" booking and "hidden city" ticketing threads on FT, and I've realised that this booking falls into that category. I have not taken an "ex-EU" trip like this before, and I didn't realise that not taking the final leg was a potential problem.

I called Cathay and asked if I could do a stop-over in London and postpone the date of the LHR - OSL flight. They advised that fare rules do not permit a London stopover, and cancelling and re-issuing a new ticket would be a very significant premium.

So my question now is: what is the technique for skipping the final flight? I have thought about the following options:

1. Telling the agent at check-in in Manila that I will only be flying to London. Will CX allow this?

2. Asking the agent at check-in in Manila to short check my bags to LHR without disclosing that I don't intend to fly to OSL. I suspect this would be difficult to argue as the transit time is under 2 hours.

3. Checking bags to OSL, but exiting at LHR and asking airport baggage services to unload the bags. I wouldn't want to do this if that would cause delays to the following flight while they unload my bags.

4. Sending my luggage using a freight service from Manila and going hand baggage only so I could leave without issue at LHR. I don't know how easy or expensive this would be to arrange.

5. Flying to OSL and then flying back to LHR back-to-back the same day. Obviously inconvenient.

Does anyone have any experience of this recently with CX? Is CX particularly aggressive about forcing people to fly complete routes so that it can maintain effective price discrimination across markets?

When checking into MNL, just tell the agent to check your luggage to LHR. Tell them not to check you in for the LHR-OSL flight.

I flew back to HKG earlier this week. When I asked to have luggage checked to a transit point (HKG), they asked if I was taking the final leg and I said that I'd likely will need to re-schedule it. I was flying ex-JFK and the check-in folks seemed fine with it. They even confirmed that they wouldn't check me into my final leg and if I did take it, I'd have to check in once I landed in HKG.

I think option 3 is not a good one. The others are potentially okay.

I'd be a bit careful with 1, 2 and 4 - there was a report on the BA board earlier this week of a BA telephone rep telling a customer that if they skipped the last leg of an ex-EU booking, BA would look to retroactively reprice the ticket and collect the difference. Obviously that's BA and not CX, and it sounds like a legal minefield, but perhaps worth bearing in mind.

If I were you, I would have booked via an TA/OTA, so as to get something like
19MAR CX253 HKGLHR 1505 2010
20MAR BA762 LHROSL 0730 1040
That way, hold luggage would only be tagged to LHR.
(replace 19MAR with desired travel date, 20MAR with 1 day after your travel date.)

Recently there was a thread where the TA received a huge bill from BA due to his customers missing the final leg. I wouldn't advise this unless OP hates that TA...

Well, I'm going to be the first - and very possibly the only - FT-er here to recommend directly that you go for option 5.

It is obviously inconvenient, and somewhat tiresome, yes.

However, it does have the benefit of avoiding any of the potential hassle & complications that could arise from options 1-4.

It also means that you are doing "the right thing" in fulfilling your part of what is, after all, a contract, and thus with zero possibility/concern of later receiving any unpleasant letters, or putting at risk - however remote - your mileage earning and/or FFP membership.

In saying this, I am very much aware that it will be seen by the vast majority (perhaps even 100%) of battle-hardened folk as a wimpish, overly-cautious and totally unnecessary approach, so I leave you as the OP to make of it what you will.

There....I've said it :eek:

Option 5 would be my choice too, for the same reasons. Nobody can guarantee that you won't face enormous headaches trying to subvert the rules of the ticket you paid for.

short check to LHR is very tough considering you have 2hour transit, and considering baggage need to make it to terminal 5 on BA it is even harder.

option 5 is not the right option as savvy consumer, even it could be moral right choice. sending luggage from mnl shud cpst close to 250usd, i would think other options even 5th is cheaper than this.

best is reschedule your flight so departure is next calendar day to OSL as stopover apply if you stay longer than 24hrs.

Thanks for all the helpful feedback.

I'll see if it is possible to reschedule the flights through Cathay to get an overnight combination. I'm not overly hopeful as no combinations like that came up when booking.

Failing this, I'll try Kawaii's suggestion and just ask for the bags to be checked to LHR. I'll also buy a cheap return from Oslo now in-case I can't get it to work on the day and have to do the whole route.

@AA_EXP09 - You right, booking this via an OTA so I could have got more flight combinations and forced an overnight for the same fare (but still less than 24hrs) would have been the sensible thing to do. However I can't do it this time as I've already booked. Learnings for next time.

@subject2load, @zeltergiset - I'm not overly concerned about fulfilling the terms of the ticket. This isn't a moral issue, it is a business one. Airlines, like most businesses, want to price discriminate by segmenting customers with different willingness to pay. They want to be able to offer lower prices to some customer groups who wouldn't otherwise buy their service without cannibalising profit made on other high margin groups. Creating conditions that make it difficult or inconvenient for one customer group to access the pricing of another customer group is how a business enforces this price discrimination. If you can't do that, you can't charge different prices for the same product. There is nothing immoral about a business trying to do this, they are trying profit maximise by extracting the maximum price possible from each customer. But that doesn't mean that anyone should actually feel obliged to comply with arbitrary and unenforceable constraints companies try to introduce - they are there for the airlines' benefit and not yours!

Just to be clear - my endorsement of option 5 is not on moral grounds, it's based on the increasing attention that airlines (well, specifically BA) seem to be paying to these issues. Prior to this public attention I dropped some last legs myself. Information is anecdotal at the moment, but I would prefer to be cautious.

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Whats ur ffp?

Considering u bill to aa/jl/qf and miss cx/ba segments, cx/ba cant hv any recourse on you except for $$ for the missing leg (which u cant really get much back).

+1 - This is important. Given the fluidity of the situation and the fact that most people who may have been caught up in a mess don't necessarily come to an internet forum to spout off, nobody here knows what the future brings for those who skip the last segment of a hidden city ticket (xEU) and what has happened before may not happen next week.

Those who say, "they won't do this" or "they can't do that" don't know. They just believe it to be the case.

I was very struck by the individual who reported booking an xEU and who was immediately warned by a front line BA phone agent about the perils of skipping the last segment. This suggests that even front line agents are being trained to spot this stuff.

Perhaps when things settle down, there may be better advice to give. But, for the moment, if the savings warrant the xEU ticket, it seems the prudent thing to do to fly it.

I would go with option 5. Maybe it's the paranoid in me, however if a lot of these types of threads have been showing up recently, it could also mean that they will track these kinds of things and it could come back to haunt you. Case in point, BA (or CX) might note it in their records and flag you for "special consideration". Doesn't necessarily mean anything to start out, however dropping the last leg a few times could cause you issues in the future.

Again, it's the paranoid in me speaking. I've seen it happen with other companies. I also with Often 1 and Zeltergiset.

I assume you bought your ticket in OSL?
Check the situation in Norway where you have the contract with the airline. In several European countries are court rulings that make it difficult/impossible for airlines to charge extra if you fly not all the flights on your ticket. If that is the case you are safe.

Does anybody knows what happens when you get sick on your flight HKG-LHR - something like food poisoning and you need to go to a hospital? Would the airline offload your luggage or return it to LHR?

I'd go option 5 too.

Having done similar routing in the past MANY TIMES I always factor in positioning flights into the total cost. As others have said this is much bigger than you and the last thing you want is to contribute to hardening of policing.

Stump up the cash and do the extra leg. You're saving a heap of cash already and it's now your obligation to fly the extra segment.

Airlines are not silly. They track people who don't complete the journey. Do it multiple times and you might find it's a breach of a policy you agreed to somewhere. Wouldn't surprise me if you were denied boarding one day until you met your financial obligation on a past ticket. It will happen one day if people keep skipping the last segment...