Missing first flight, can you fly the second segment?
 

Did a search but didn't have luck... and couldn't find CO's connection policies on their website either, so hoping you experts can help me out.

Here's my dilemma: I'm about to buy a ALB-SJC ticket on CO, connecting thru EWR. I live closer to EWR than ALB but ALB's fares are way way better, worth the train ride to ALB.

I'm not sure if I will be able to leave work earlier that day so there's a chance I may not make the ALB-EWR flight. I'm sure I can make the EWR-SJC flight. If I miss the first flight, will CO allow me to board the second flight? Would you buy the ticket and take the risk?

Any opinions are much appreciated.

Thanks!

I believe if you miss your outbound, your ticket will be canceled (according to whatever refund class you paid for -- I'm assuming you're talking about a non-refundable ticket).

What about this though... Book the cheap ALB-SJC ticket, and if it looks like you aren't going to make that flight, call and change ($100 change fee) your outbound to EWR-SJC.

You'd have to do the math to see what kind of gamble/payoff this method results in (I guess you'd end up with a very expensive EWR-SJC last-minute ticket, so it might not be worth it). But it's something to consider, anyway.

What about just booking EWR-SJC with a return to ALB? That might get you half the savings.

jk2317 is correct...if you simply no-show for the first leg, all other legs will cancel.

Call and explain your situation...if you tell the truth (that you fully intended to travel from ALB, but may not be able to), the rep may be able to cancel just the first leg and leave the second leg intact.

Generally speaking, a change to the initial segment will trigger a full reprice, so you'd be repricing not only the EWR-SJC but also the SJC-ALB flight.

You can get off in EWR and just miss your flight to ALB and not worry too much about it. But you're going to need to be on that first segment, or you won't be going to California.

This is "Throw Away Ticketing" which is illegal per the tariff rules.

CO will make you reprice - or you will need to cancel and pay the $100 rebooking fee then rebook a new itinerary at a new price. The airlines have gotten pretty strict about this. Easier to do on the return - just do not board the connection (with no checked luggage) - but overtime if a pattern developed (and CO does have snooping software) - CO could confiscate your mileage. Not a good thing to do.

You likely should try to make the effort to get out and catch the original flight.

thank you guys...

based on your responses, seems like it's a too risky. the repricing could be a good idea only if you are lucky enough to talk to a nice agent.

I think I'm going to book EWR-SJC and SJC-ALB, at least that should get me half of the savings! BTW, this is a non-refundable ticket, very cheap, reason why I'm going... $123 + taxes!!!

Repricing is a horrible option - but it is exactly what CO will do if you call and say you can't make the ALB-EWR flight.

Repricing will use fare rules in effect the day you are making the change - not at the day you bought your oriignal ticket from ALB-SJC. Therefore, if you change your ticket the day before departure to depart EWR (instead of ALB), you will highly likely wind up in a much higher fare class because you have lost the Advanced Purchase restriction on most fares.

The best way to do this is either purchase from EWR to start with or make darn sure you are going to get to ALB in time to make that flight down to EWR.

-RM

Just curious...if you have no luggage and check in online to get boarding passes, would they still know you missed your 1st leg? I'm not advocating this, just wondering.

They scan boarding the passes during boarding... which, if they do not scan, triggers the "CO is paging passenger Thaliajen, please report to gate xxx for immediate departure." etc.

AH yes.... "Paging passenger jk2317" the split-second before I hand my boarding pass for scanning... That's when I've timed my arrival perfectly!

A wise man once told me "If you don't miss a flight every now and then, you spend too much of your life in airports." :D

After reading this post, I came up with a similar question. What if you wanted to only get to your first segment city?

For example, if you wanted to fly to EWR from IAH but IAH-BUF is much cheaper and you missed your 2nd segment but already reached your destination city (EWR)?

That'd work, though it's "not allowed," and you wouldn't be able to take a return trip from BUF or EWR.

another if to add to CO767 question.... lets say you wanted to stay a couple of days in EWR and then you drive to BUF. So if you tell them you 'missed' the connection but managed to get to your final destination, would they cancel your return legs? even if you start back in BUF on your return?

btw, i decided not to go thru ALB, don't want to take the risk of not making it...

I did that one time, with AC but I'm sure CO is the same. My 2nd segment (YUL-YOW) was delayed, and the delay was getting worse (on a 30 minute flight). I told the GA I would go rent a car one-way, to please add a note to my itinerary, to not cancel my return. I still had a hard time the next day checking in for the return.

About throw-away ticketing: your address is on file with Nonepass... Pretty easy to figure out that your home is closer to EWR than ALB, that you had no intention do the first segment.

All of the questions asked in this thread are strictly forbidden by the fare rules of every airline I can think of (except probably Southwest). Some airlines (not sure about CO) will impose monetary penalties if they catch you doing this.

Worse, some people have tried to do back-to-back ticketing. This is basically creating two round-trip tickets in an inventive way. For example, buying CLE-EWR-CLE and EWR-CLE-EWR, using both outbound tickets first, and then using the return tickets later or refunding that portion. Another trick is having one round-trip ticket inside of another round-trip ticket.