buying r/t but not using return?
 

I'm looking at a specific flight that is in upwards of $800 if I book 1-way. If I book a roundtrip its much, much cheaper. Can I book the roundtrip and just now show up for the return? Do people have experience with this on KLM?

thanks

Yes, but not the other way around. You can't miss the first leg, because when you don't show for your leg, the ticket is going to be cancelled. So flying AAA-BBB-AAA you can miss BBB-AAA, but you can't miss AAA-BBB, because the ticket is worthless then (unless it's a flexible one)

If you've a ticket like AAA-BBB-CCC-BBB-AAA and you miss BBB-CCC because you travelled this part by bus/train/car, the part BBB-CCC-BBB-AAA will be cancelled.

I've done it in the past. No problem.

And reclaim the unused airport tax

oooh- good call on that. how do i do that?

Are you sure this is advisable ?

I wouldn't advise you do that because there is a chance that they will then quote the small print in the terms and conditions on your return ticket, which states that if you don't complete the full itinerary you will be charged the price of a one-way ticket, which as you know is much higher than a return.

However, if you just keep quiet it is highly unlikely they will charge you if you "accidently" miss your return flight.

Yes; I do it almost every time I fly KLM around EU - building a 3 city itin out of 3 RTs with "throw-away returns" is often much less than half the price than booking as a single multi-leg trip.

I do it all the time. It is never a problem. I normally call in and arrange it via them. I trow tens of legs away a year. I call it beating the system and it saves me thousands of dollars a year on tickets.

Do you get the tax back? If so, how do you advise that I do it?

Thanks,

I asked for reimbursment of taxes once, when I couldn't use the first leg of a ticket that didn't allow changes. Customer service passed me with billing and they were happy to help; it was not KLM, but surely, they should know how to handle this.

So how do you get back to where you started if you're throwing numerous return legs away ?....I can understand using back to back tickets to get cheaper round trips, but I'm just interested to know.

Example:
A few colleagues used Easyjet for AMS-MXP (OW)
For the return (on the same day) they used Alitalia for MXP-AMS and threw away the return AMS-MXP (2 weeks later). So combining different airlines with different rules can help.

Last time I booked with KL, I got a message informing me that "fuel surcharges are non-refundable on nonref tickets". Unless you feel like taking them to court for imposing unfair contract terms on you, I wouldn't ask for a refund of taxes, as it's likely to only net you somehting like 5 Euros in PSC plus a 38-cent security fee.

Yeah, and don't forget about the service fee !

If you buy a round trip and not show up for the return, you will be charged for the flight cos you were supposed to fly but didn't. But if you cancel it, then its fine. However if you try to get a refund, the ticket will be repriced as the ONEWAY that you were trying to avoid in the first place. So in the end, you won't get any money back.