I have one next week that I don't know this will be an issue or not.
Ticket 1: For myself IND-ORD-IND
Ticket 2: For myself and my wife. ORD-LHR-TXL-LHR-ORD
All on AA.
I just want to have the same PNR with my wife since she is only AA GLD.
My wife is in Chicago, and I am in Indy.
It was about the same price to book IND-ORD-LHR-TXL and IND-ORD+ ORD-LHR-TXL.
Will I have trouble?

What you have is a nested ticket which is perfectly legal. You are not interspersing the same itinerary in reverse to get around a Saturday night stay requirement, which on some airlines have disappeared.

You also are using different cities, so there really is no problem.
What yuchung5 has is end-on-end ticketing, not nested. As noted above end-on-end is legit on the vast majority of fares.

No, it's a nested ticket. It's not a back-to-back ticket, which is a subset of nesting.

The terminology doesn't really matter. We all agree that it's okay.

What routing would be an end-on-end ticket?

My understanding is, as long as your nested ticket does not bring you back to the originating city of the "outer layer" ticket, you are fine.

End-on-end ticketing usually refers to combining fares on one ticket.
http://www.travelterminal.com/glossary.shtml#end_on_end

A nested ticketing situation occurs when one ticket is issued for travel that takes place between two coupons in another ticket. Nested ticketing is back-to-back ticketing, as defined in various airline CoC, as situations where the nested ticket is used to circumvent fare rules regarding minimum stay and returns one to the origin.

And, under most airline CoC rules, it must be used to circumvent fare rules (minimum stay, etc.).
http://www.travelterminal.com/resfaq.shtml#backtoback

Really? Sure, in practice you will not get caught, but back-to-back ticketing would seem to violate at least one airline's CoC:

Nowhere in this section does it say anything about being applicable only to NW tickets. Perhaps such an exception is specified elsewhere (I doubt it). Of course I did not read the entire CoC; nobody ever does (besides NW lawyers and really really bored people). Is this really a Contract?

They can certainly regulate the means by which you purchase and fly tickets from them but the airlines cannot tell you that you cannot buy a ticket on a different carrier.

The value of what airlines, along with hotels and car rental companies, sell can vary greatly according to the day of the week you chose to sit in one of their seats, or sleep in one of their beds or drive one of their cars. They want to realize the maximum price they can get and try to do that by various means, one of them being to price more dearly what business travelers are after than what leisure travelers are after, since the former is generally more able and willing to pay more for what they are after. Requiring a Saturday night stay over, something most business travelers are unwilling to accept while leisure travelers are not so unwilling to accept, or even want, is one way to segment the market and get more $$$ out of their customers.

Now if someone wants to fly A-B-A on a less expensive ticket but doesn't want to spend a Saturday night in B, can any CoC require that they be physically present in B on a Saturday, preventing the customer from flying, busing, driving, walking, bicycling, or traveling on still other means to C, D or wherever and absenting themselves from B? If so, I'd like to see the contract language. All that the carrier can do is penalize you if they catch you doing what the OP contemplates, that is flying on the same carrier A-B-A and B-A-B to get around their Saturday night stay requirement.

No. They can only control your purchases of tickets from them.

Technically speaking, the OP wants to do something that is not allowable within the contract rules for the fare being purchased. Specifically, fly airline XX from AAA-BBB-AAA and BBB-AAA-BBB to avoid some portion of the fare rules.

Can you get away with this once or twice, certainly. But to stay below the radar, others have suggested in the past to buy the tickets with some time and some good reason... like "I had to be back in city X for a meeting", or whatever. But the time component lessens the perceptions of fare rule avoidance (intent being a key factor in the equation). Evenralfp's pasting of NW's rules describe "FOR THE PURPOSE OF CIRCUMVENTING APPLICABLE TARIFF RULES" which is a type of intent.

On the other hand, as others have pointed out, you can fly a different airline. You aren't breaking airline XX's rules at all. Youare flying them on the appropriate days and are not buying other tickets from them to circumventing the rules. It's possible, but unlikely, that FF credits will give you away... but even then, there's no specific prohibition around flying someone else back to your home. As others have said, nothing prevents you from flying NYC-WAS-NYC and taking Amtrak, or driving, or whatever back to NYC in the middle. There's no "rule" that you have to stay within 200 miles of WAS during this trip. Just that you can't fly WAS-NYC-WAS in the middle on airline XX to avoid paying the difference in fares for a Saturday night stayover (for example).

I guess, my summary is this: 1) It's technically against the rules if it's your intent to have a lower fare. 2) You most likely won't get harassed if it's the one and only time. 3) If it is going to happen more than once, buy a 1 way or fly 2 different airlines... something to avoid the issue. And 4) If you HAVE to do this and you are doing it intentionally, do it with discretion... space out the 2 purchases if possible and DON'T CALL THE AIRLINE!!!

1) I have done back-to-back ticketing literally, honestly, dozens if not scores of times.

2) It has been less necessary in recent years, thanks to the Southwest Effect and that of other LCCs. (For instance, back in the day, the lowest BOS-ORD RT was $869, for years. And transcon, it was usually the difference between $1,400 - sometimes $2,000 - and ~$200. Make that ~$400 for the two RT tickets.)

3) A travel agent will not do it for you.

I do not feel any guilt whatsoever if I'm doing the best that's left to me vs. monopolistic pricing.

If the purpose of buying a ticket on carrier B is to circumvent the fare rules for a ticket from carrier A, why can't carrier A hold that as a violation of their CoC? From my example, I saw nothing in NW's CoC restricting the applicability of the back-to-back ticketing rule to NW tickets.

I was given a bit of grief at the airport a couple of weeks ago. I am picking up my daughter over xmas and bringing her to see me (separated; you know how it is). Doing the outbound turn around and come back with the kid. Do the same in reverse at the end of the holidays. Booked return on same itin with kid, so I end up with two back-to-backs. Now, the route no longer has a saturday night stay requirement (thanks LCCs), so I don't know what the issue was. The agent, who issued the tickets, said that I was OK though because I was using those free round trip VDB vouchers, so there was no higher fare that I was avoiding. Clearly, saturday night stay rules do not apply to VDB free trip vouchers. Something to consider when planning your future trips.

rawilliam, you sing my life of a few years back. You're far from alone. A major reason for the number at the left here, and also for my reply @27.* One small question: I thought the last DBCFree voucher I got required booking into "Q" with attendant requirements (including 14 day advance reservation and a Saturday stay)? Thanks.


* Wait till she tells you, "I'm not coming because Mom says....." or for whatever reason, when you show up. You'll always use freebies from that point forward.