I am scheduled to fly roundtrip EWR-FLL, leaving wed. and returning monday morning. However, i've found out that i will recently will be needing to go to Shanghai for a business trip the same monday morning. My current FLL-EWR flight does not allow for enough time to make the EWR-PVG flight monday morning. If I buy a new ticket from FLL directly to PVG, it will stop over regardless in EWR, so it would be FLL-EWR-PVG. I could leave FLL on sunday night (instead of on my current leisure flight monday morning), have a overnight stopover in EWR, and then make it onto the monday morning EWR-PVG flight. I've called continental to confirm that if i take the first leg of EWR-FLL and call before my return leg to reschedule/cancel my FLL-EWR leg of my roundtrip, it should be ok. However, i've read online about "hidden city" & "throwaway" ticketing and am worried that that this iternary would count. Any thoughts?

Wed: EWR - FLL (original flight)
Sun: FLL - EWR (new flight to shanghai, overnight stopover)
Mon: EWR - PVG (new flight to shanghai, continuation)
FLL - EWR (from original flight, i would call and request to either cancel or change this flight once i landed in FLL wed. evening)

When you check-in online Sunday morning, 24 hours before flight time, you might be offered a Same Day Change for $50. There might be available seats on a Sunday afternoon flight or a Sunday evening flight.

Accept the offer, pay the extra $50, and then fly up to EWR earlier than originally scheduled. It is less complicated than calling, explaining, etc.

I have flown home the night before, for the $50 fee. It works.

Except the OP will have needed to purchase FLL - PVG before finding out whether there is any SDC availability.

This isn't hidden city ticketing, because you're purchasing a legit FLL-PVG itinerary that just happens to give you an overnight in EWR. It might be throwaway, but plans do change, necessitating changing flight itineraries, and as long as you don't make a habit of it, I can't see this being a problem.

If there isn't much of a price difference, I'd just buy the FLL-EWR-PVG-EWR ticket.

It would be possible to keep the original PNR, and just change the return leg (originally FLL-EWR Monday) to FLL-PVG-EWR. You're still staying in FLL over Saturday night.

I can think of three reasons (and there may well more) to avoid a change and buy a whole new ticket to PVG, but do any of them actually apply?

• $150 change fee is more than the value of the FLL-EWR return?
• Business trip must be charged to a different form of payment?
• EWR-PVG trip would become nonrefundable since the most restrictive rules (from EWR-FLL) would apply to the whole itinerary?

Jeebus, no manners anymore.

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