I'm flying DFW-SLC this saturday for a daytrip this weekend and have a bunch of stuff I'm planning to take to SLC and leave there. When I booked my ticket, I searched for DFW-SLC roundtrip, and one of the options it showed was DFW-SLC outbound, SLC-LAX-DFW returning for far, far less than any of the other non-stop or connecting routings. All told, I'll be in SLC for about 5 hours (plenty of time to conduct the business I have planned, absent any flight delays) and have a 2.5 hour connection in LAX.

HOWEVER

DL.Com and the App both show my destination as LAX (the receipt still lists SLC as the destination), I suspect because it's actually priced as a DFW-LAX roundtrip via SLC, with a 5 hour "connection" that wouldn't normally be allowed pre-COVID. Will I have any issue having my luggage checked to SLC and not LAX? I plan to take a printed copy of the receipt showing that I booked a flight to SLC, and I fully intend to fly the routing as booked (no hidden city shenanigans for me), but I'd really rather not show up at the airport with 3 bags to check in and find that they will only check them to LAX because of how the fare is constructed.

Edited to add: I looked at some other threads on short-checking bags domestically - it seems the policy allows that regardless of routing/destination for connections longer than either 4 or 6 hours, it's not totally clear what the current rule is. Hoping a combination of status + an understanding agent + general COVID-era flexibility make it a non-issue, but you never know...

The email receipt would confirm what you booked in the Fare Details: section which has the fare components breakdown. Almost certainly it's a combination of DFW-LAX and LAX-DFW fares as you suspect which is not a broken fare (it's the opposite). A broken fare would be if you had separate fares for DFW-SLC and SLC-LAX segments (which would cost considerably more than the single DFW-LAX fare you actually booked). There isn't really such a thing as a single "roundtrip" fare. There are still two fares involved, it's just that there can be cheaper fares that require a roundtrip booking (although this route likely doesn't have any since DL competes with WN on it and WN doesn't have them -- DFW-LAX fares are just cheap because of all the competition on the route). This thread suggests they won't short check unless connection is over 6 hours -- Short check bags. Perhaps they might let you do it if you explain you are not doing this for hidden-city booking purposes, but don't really know how much discretion the agents have.

Thanks for the clarification in terms. If it comes to it, I�ll probably have to lean on the fact that DL.com returns that as a valid fare combination for a DFW-SLC roundtrip search, and any layman would reasonably expect the destination they searched for to be the end of the outbound leg, regardless of how the seller accounts for it on their end.

You wont have any issue. You have two OW fares, not broken fares. DL.com and app have forever randomly displayed simple connecting flights as if they were separate.

Ie I have a LAX-CDG-JNB booking and DL app shows it as if I had separate OW for LAX-CDG and CDG-JNB despite it being one fare for both segments. It's just a quirk of display and has nothing to do with breaking fare.

While DL can have display issues with itins, I think it's very likely the case that the fares here are DFW-LAX + LAX-DFW and not DFW-SLC + SLC-DFW from what OP described. I repeated OP's search for DFW-SLC same-day roundtrip and the cheapest option returned were indeed DFW-LAX (with SLC connection) and LAX-DFW fares as you can see below. There were also DFW-DTW (with SLC connection) + DTW-DFW fares that were cheaper than DFW-SLC + SLC-DFW fares. I've seen Google Flights do the same thing when searching for cheapest roundtrip same-day fares. While these aren't what one would normally call a "broken" fare (multiple fares per one-way direction), the roundtrip fare break is at a different airport than what was used for the search destination. While DAL/DFW-SLC has some competition from WN on it, it's only a single daily flight. It's not like DAL/DFW-LAX or DAL/DFW-DTW which also get ULCC competition (NK) in addition to WN. DL's cheapest main cabin fares for DFW-SLC are $139 each way, but they have a 3 week advance purchase requirement and are only good for Tue/Wed travel. For most dates, you will find cheaper fares for DFW-LAX and DFW-DTW.

Update, took some explaining but was able to get my bags checked to SLC - the agent at DFW made a point of saying short-checking isn't usually allowed, but understood the situation and accommodate. Basically a �don�t make a habit of it� response

Glad it worked for you. The check-in agent was entirely correct. DL does not short check bags, so he went out of his way for you.

There are no notes kept of this, so you are free to attempt this on every trip or never again and it will not matter. You simply need to be prepared to accept a "no" and thus check through/

Again - I'm not disagreeing with the policy on short-checking bags, but rather the fact that DL is, in certain scenarios returning an A -> B outbound, B ->C->A return routing for a roundtrip flight search for A->B that is in reality an A->C roundtrip fare via B in the outbound direction.

The faring isn't made apparent in the flight search or purchase process, and as someone pointed out upthread, it's not uncommon for DL.com and the App to show odd break points. If DL is going to set a given policy (only check bags to the endpoint of the fare), they shouldn't sell a product that runs afoul of their policies.

People should always check the fare construction on the receipt so that the ticket can be changed immediately if necessary. Unfortunately most customers don't know how to do this or that they should be careful about broken fares. [IME delta.dumb keeps offering me broken fares that are more expensive than a through fare would be for exactly the same flights.]

The broken fare issue is a bit of a red herring. If this is a connection on a single e-ticket number, DL will check the bags through to the final ticketed destination absent circumstances not relevant here.

It's probably worth pointing out that the situations where the fare searches will do this are pretty limited -- basically where the layover is less than 6 hours (domestically). Formerly it was 4 hours pre-Covid and presumably DL will go back to that at some point (UA and AA already have). If the layover in SLC had been any longer than 6 hours, it would have automatically created a fare break there (and the options where the break was in LAX would not be available). There's probably not too many situations where people are booking layovers less than 6 hours and are also checking luggage. They would likely mostly be booked by people on short business trips (or mileage runs) where you generally don't check bags.

Agreed. There is nothing particularly unique or uncommon for there to be a fare break at a connecting city. If the itinerary is less expensive this way, the GDS/CRS will price it as such. It's still a valid O&D ticket (assuming one does not intentionally purchase separate tickets), and there should be no with issue checking bags/IRROPS, etc.

The issue was the fare break was at a different city than OP expected. Yes, there are frequent situations where you can end up with a broken fares for an A-B-C routing and not realize it (and assume you are getting an A-C fare). As long as connection is less than 6 hours, you can either check through from A-C (which is what will typically happen without input) or short check at B. But OP's situation is different as the A-B-C-A routing had a fare break at C, with no break at B (which OP had been expecting since B was chosen as the "destination" in the roundtrip search). Having the break at C instead of B was possible because of the less than 6 hour layover at B and is what is created issues with the short check.