Hi there,

I've just gotten off the phone to CX and they say that if I don't board my flight outbound that I won't be eligible to use my flight home bound?! Can they do this?

The back story; Due to some unexpected schedule changes I'm no longer able to catch my original flight outbound from Hong Kong to Tokyo. So I purchased another LCC flight to Japan, expecting to be able to use the return leg. After lunch with friends today I was told that may not be possible and checked with Cathay. They also said the same, but I've paid for a return flight even if it is a 'fanfare', but why can't I use just the return leg..?

Ha man, no offense but this is like airline tickets 101. If you ditch a sector earlier in the itinerary the rest cancels. Same holds for if you're on a longer ticket (say TPE-HKG-DXB-HKG-TPE). If you fly to HKG but then skip the Dubai sector the rest cancel as well.

Otherwise point of sale and various other price discrimination methods would be useless.

Sorry you have to learn the hard way. This is a no brainier unfortunately. Those two segments are tied together, and are priced as a unit.

If you want to skirt the system, you can sometimes ditch the final sector. Because the airline really doesn't have much leverage over you at that point, even though you've circumvented their pricing unit. But if they say "this fare is only valid for a return set of flights", which is the type of ticket you bought, and you ditch the FIRST sector, you realize they hold major leverage over you...aka that return segment. They enforce this leverage by cancelling the remaining segments. Which they are totally entitled to do (and will), and you aren't entitled to anything.

Sorry

You can read section 3.3 on the general conditions of carriage for CX below

https://www.cathaypacific.com/conten...baggage-en.pdf

At most you may be able to negotiate for the fare difference for you original ticket and the price of a one-way ticket from NRT/HND to HKG but they have no obligation to actually honor this request.

Worst case scenario is you will need to buy a new one-way ticket back. If your schedule change was caused by something that is covered by travel insurance you have (if any), that will be the only way to claim back any money that is lost by missing your original ticket.

fanfares are not refundable no?

This is not a problem with fanfares. It applies to any ticket. If you fail to take the outbound of a return ticket, it immediately invalidates the entire ticket so you can never take the inbound.

Correct. Ever since e-tickets are used, passengers can only fly in the sequence of their tickets.

Thank you everyone for the replies! I wasn't expecting such a great response.

Anyway, it seems I've been schooled, but learnt my lesson. In the end, discussing with CX what options I had (little to none), I cancelled the fare and received the taxes back. I had purchased a one way ticket with another carrier, and used mileage with another to fly me back.

Many thanks for your help and information.