I learned a lesson this past week that many may already know. But in case you have never heard of this, here it is. I had a Continental flight out of LAS to TYR (Tyler) through Houston on 12/22. I caught and earlier flight from Vegas to Houston and got there early in the morning. Since it was a 9 hour wait for the next flight and only a 3 hour drive I rented a car and drove it. When I got online to check in for the return trip it gave me a message saying that they were unable to check me in. I called and was told that since I did not take the final leg the return ticket had been cancelled. I had to pay for a new one-way ticket, at a higher rate, plus a change fee, even though it was a First Class ticket.

This situation had never come up for me in the past so I was unaware for this rule. I know it now.

Why was there a 9hr layover? Was this due to some sort of schedule change or weather? If so, you should have been able to convince the airline to restore the return part of your itinerary.

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Obscure2k
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There are only two flights from IAH to TYR. I was on the first one out for the day and it was not until mid-afternoon.

Yep, Tyler not a big market especially on a Saturday. ALways take all outbound and then returns can be moved around. Hope to see you around more. I am a CO LAS flyer about three times a year. Welcome.

Why would you have bothered to take the earlier LAS-IAH flight when you were aware that the first IAH-TYR flight departed nine hours after your arrival at IAH?

Presumably, so he could drive 3 hours and get in early.

Why not just buy a ticket for LAS-IAH-LAS, then?

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

I am sorry that happened to you. It's pretty standard operation on all carriers: you miss a leg and the rest of the itinerary is canceled.

The original LAS-TYR itinerary would not have had me wait so long between flights. Since our office closed early I was able to leave earlier. I wanted to take advantage of that to have extra time with family at Christmas.

When I changed to the earlier flight I had already decided to rent a car and drive the last leg instead of waiting for the first fight from IAH to TYR. If I had been aware of this cancelling the remaining itinerary I would have waited for my original flight.

I had something similar happen to me on NW.

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At least the OP titled the thread correctly. It is standard operating procedure on every airline I fly that if you miss a leg the rest of the ticket is canceled. The only "safe" leg to skip is the last one. Sorry and it sucks to find out the way you did but it is the way things are.

As a travel agent told me years ago when I started my frequent travels, ALWAYS call to cancel a flight the moment you know you won't take it. It makes everything easier.

I thought about that so when I was buying the new return ticket I asked Continental if it would have made a difference if I had cancelled the last leg when I checked in for the earlier first leg flight. I was told that it would not and that I still would have had to pay for the change and the new return price. And that was something that kind of bothered me. Why would I have to pay more for not flying?

Something else I found odd was that the two days before the return I called to see if there were any seats available on a different flight. I gave them my confirmation number so they were looking at my itinerary. They never mentioned that my return ticket had been cancelled. I haven't figured that one out yet.

"Lesson learned" about what?

oh, you have to fly all legs of your outbound ticket or your return will get cancelled.

okay. gothca.