I want to fly IND-BUF r/t. Depart 6/29, return 7/9.

In the middle of that, I might want to fly BUF-IND r/t, say fly in 7/2, return 7/3.

Isn't this a nested ticket? Will NW do something I don't like, like cancel reservations or something like that? Should I book the middle flight on another carrier?

I would book the middle trip on another airline - non SkyTeam even.

This is more an end-to-end ticket than nested. You are not starting your tickets out of sequence so you should be fine. You are not doing this to avoid Sat. night stay over or other requirements, are you?

No, I'm doing it to save money.

My initial trip (6/29 out, 7/9 return) allows me to take the week of the 4th of July off.

For a number of reasons, I might want to go back (leaving out of BUF) for the 2nd and 3rd and then go back for the rest of my vacation.

It turns out, the ticketing is cheaper than doing it "in series".

I'm well aware I could avoid the whole issue by just flying on another carrier, but I need the segments and miles, and why should I try to "hide" a perfectly legitimate trip? Would NW want me to use another carrier instead of them?

OK - rhetorical question. But seriously ... do their Fare Police check on stuff like this? What are the odds of raising a red flag? And if they do, what can they legally do ... confiscate my ticket? After they sold it to me?

I flew two nested tickets this past weekend and I was fine. It helps if you print your boarding passes out yourself though, no need to raise suspicion by talk to staff.

Actually, this is a back-to-back ticketing. Big no-no if esp if they involve Saturday night stay rules. Best advise: book on different SkyTeam carriers. That way, your mileage accumulation is still valid and you're not violating NW's fare rules.

According to the definitions I could google up, this is not a back-to-back ticket.

Suppose: I have an assignment on the west coast, with a definite start and stop date, say start Aug 1 and finish up Oct 30. So I buy a round trip ticket.

Well, the guy I'm working for wants me to come back for a face-to-face every now and then, so once in a while I'll have to get a ticket back for a day or two in the middle of the assignment.

Are you telling me I have to watch my step and skulk off to another carrier because the airline I bought the original r/t from will somehow track me down and force me to by unrestricted tickets or something? Does it really work this way?

I did this every week on NW. Booked a long trip LGA-MSP (Monday returning on the following Thurs), and then a weekend trip MSP-LGA (Thurs returning Mon). It's never been a problem - in fact my company recommends it, and they are super careful to follow the airline rules.

The bottom line really depends on the fare rules. Some fares allow end-on-end as well as back-to-back; some routes require Sat stay on lower fare buckets; some fares allow you to mix buckets (i.e., outbound in V and return in K) while others don't. There's too many factors.

My good rule of thumb: if a LCC flies the same route, then major airlines will not require the Sat stay since LCC rules do not have one... just read the fare rules.

Just in case some NW employee thinks this is a nested tix, would it be advisable to put the dates?

Well --

1. The first ticket has two Saturday night stays.
2. The second ticket has no Saturday night stays. That's how it's sold, so they can't possibly require a Saturday in there.

No matter which way I had done it "in series", there would have been a Saturday in there.

Finally, I thought a lot of that Saturday night stuff had gone away?

And, yes -- I can do the trip on US (which is fast becoming the Ryanair of North America) or on WN. If they force me to, I will.

I've bought the "long" ticket. I'll probably get the "short" one in a day or two.

OT - I have much better luck getting tickets on Orbitz than I have with NW's own website. The usual stuff -- "error - try later", gotta log in again, they forget what I was doing, they hide the fare classes after you select one segment, and on and on and on. I'm willing to pay the five bucks fee just to get it done.

BigLar, I remembered many moons ago, NW required Sat night stays for NYC-SEA. When B6 (JetBlue) entered the market, they've relaxed the rule to EITHER a Sat night OR 3 days for earliest return. So, yes, the Sat night rule still applies (true on JP itineraries).

I'm curious, what are the fare basis on your tickets? Read under the "combinability" section of the fare rules.

What about:

(hypothetical cities)

I know I'm flying to DCA for several month Monday-Thursday.

I book a One Way the first Monday to get to MSP>DCA.
I book the rest of my weekly flights DCA>MSP>DCA which now include a Sat
Final flight is a one way DCA>MSP

Would this violate NWA rules?

According to all the definitions of back-to-back ticketing that I have heard, what the OP is doing is bac-to-back ticketing - same orgin and destination points, using first half of each ticket for the first trip, second half of each ticket for the second trip. If the fares price out the same whether he purchased two consecutive from IND to BUF and back or they way he described, it probably won't be an issue.

I personally know someone who was asked to pay $1,500 for "back-to-back" ticketing with Delta several years ago. I think it was PDX-DFW-PDX.

Ticket 1
Day 1 (Monday) PDX-DFW
Day 12 (Friday) DFW-PDX

Ticket 2
Day 5 (Friday) DFW-PDX
Day 8 (Monday) PDX-DFW

If he had purchased the tickets as Day 1 to Day 5 and Day 8 to Day 12, the fare would have been much higher and ended up being so, since DL socked him for most of the original $1,500 they asked for.

Assuming they detected this after the flights were flown, how did they go about charging him the fees? What kind of pressure did they put? Also are airlines protected by federal law to do suh things? A non-frequent flyer would not know such laws and would definitely get annoyed by such things.