I've searched through NW's contract of carriage and various FT threads on nested tickets, but I'm still not sure if I'm going to get myself in trouble with the following...

I currently live in New York and will be working this summer in Iowa. I'll need to come back East for at least one weekend during the summer, though.

I plan to get one ticket to go to Iowa for the summer (May LGA-MLI, August return). I'm planning to buy the ticket as soon as I find out my start date for the job (because MLI fares are cheap right now, and I know exactly when I need to return to NY).

I expect to come back East at least once or twice, probably flying MLI-EWR-MLI for a weekend or two in June. There may be a CID-LGA-CID weekend in there somewhere, too. I'll be buying those tickets later, though, because I don't yet know my exact schedule (and I wouldn't be surprised if there were schedule changes between now and then).

I consider these "nested" tickets, since I'm not doing it to cheat fares, but to get tickets when I need them for the most convenient flights.

But I worry that NW might disagree. Might they view these as back-to-back because the origins and destinations are the same? Does it matter whether I use LGA or EWR, since they're both NYC airports?

I suppose I could buy the May/August ticket on a different airline (UA, AA, DL, FL, TZ, and YX all fly NYC-MLI), but I'm Silver on NW right now and trying hard to keep my status (I've only flown 12,000 miles so far in 2003, and don't expect to do much traveling next fall).

Thoughts?

Hmmm... Sounds pretty Kosher but you never know. IMHO the real gotchas these days are hidden cities and unused segments. If they say no way, you could buy the summer ticket on a different airline, and the nested trips on NW. DL also flies to CID, if the alliance is "hot" by then.

FWIW CID prices are wacky- tickets vary wildly and often get cheaper closer to the date. Be careful on Friday afternoons- if you want to re-book make sure to do so early.

The people out there are nice but I have to say Iowa reminds me why I left upstate NY and moved to a city. There is so little out there!

-cwk.

PS- Make sure to ask the locals what the "fifth season" is...

The only way you would 'cheat fares' is if your nested ticket (Iowa to East coast) violated the minimum stay requirements of your LGA-MLI ticket.

Your LGA-MLI ticket most likely has a minimum stay of a saturday stay or less.

So, in other words, as long as you spend the minimum stay requirement away from NYC, it will not be considered back-to-back tickets.

[This message has been edited by keithguy (edited 03-27-2003).]

I really dont understand why the airlines dont like nested ticketing. If Im paying more for another set of tickets, why are they complainging. In these hard times they should be glad to see the extra income.

------------------
God Bless America West and ...

HP - Platinum/990k miles
BA - Dirt/5k Soon to be Gold
AA - Dirt/60k, 2MM soon.
UA - Dirt/19k miles
NW - Dirt/10k For emergencies.

I may actually run into the Saturday night stay problem at the beginning, depending on when I start work. I'm coming back East for the weekend of June 7, and am not yet sure whether I'll be headed out to Iowa May 25 or June 1. I actually just put some dates in at nwa.com, though, and it looks like they don't have saturday night stay requirements for K fares to MLI, because I can do LGA-MLI-EWR June 1/6 for $247. And even better, the following itin is only $455 total:

June 1 LGA-MLI
June 6 MLI-EWR
June 8 EWR-MLI
Aug 11 MLI-LGA

So I guess if I'm going out June 1, then I'll just not "nest" the June 7 ticket, and I'll nest any other weekend tickets that come up later on.

BTW, I'm originally from Davenport, so MLI is my home airport. That five seasons thing in Cedar Rapids has always baffled me, though. Maybe I'll finally figure it out this summer since I'll be spending 5 weeks there. As for the "so little out there" thing, it's true. But it's still a great place to live, and I may eventually go back (I'm in NYC for the near term).

Right now, none of the cheaper NW fares have saturday stay requriements. Just watch for it when you do purchase a ticket. If it looks like you'll need to circumvent the minimum stay requirement, you can purchase a ticket on another carrier (such as CO for WorldPerks miles).

AirTran flies there, and as a result there is no minimum stay requirement in this market, making back-to-back impossible.

JS, do you mean that there's no way to get myself in trouble? So I can just buy whatever tickets for whatever days I want?

(BTW, thanks to all of you for your advice.)

Not neccessarily. There are some V, Q, and H fares that require a saturday stay.

Just because AirTran serves the market does not neccessarily mean all fares will have no minimum stay.

Ultimately, just be aware of the minimum stay requirement that you buy and make sure you don't get around it by buying a ticket back to NYC on NW (going somewhere else and/or on another carrier is fine).

Nested tickets are not illegal. Each ticket is a separate transaction/contract with separate fare rules and restrictions. One has no effect on the other. Just be sure that you use each flight coupon in the proper order for the flight booked and don't try to switch coupons or destination cities.

In your example, trips 1 and 4 are from one ticket and trips 2 and 3 from the other ticket. No problem if used as booked.

You could also use:

LGA - MLI April 8..........coupon 1 ticket 1
MLI - LGA April 11.........coupon 1 ticket 2
LGA - MLI April 14.........coupon 2 ticket 2
MLI - LGA April 16.........coupon 2 ticket 1

Both tickets may have a Sat night stay requirement, yet neither round trip flown actually results in a Sat night stay. All flights are flown according to the rules.

If the tickets have a saturday stay requirement, then the example proposed above would be back-to-back ticketing, which is against the rules.

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If the tickets have a saturday stay requirement, then the example proposed above would be back-to-back ticketing, which is against the rules.

[/B][/QUOTE]
This is not against the rules. Both tickets have a Saturday night stay requirement, and neither is violated so long as the tickets are used in proper order. These tickets are separate and do not influence each other.

Keep in mind that I am talking about two separate reservations and two separate itineraries. This example cannot be combined in the same reservation.

From NWA's Contract of Carriage:

It is against the rules. The tickets are not used in proper order. Ticket 1 is half-used, followed by half of ticket 2, followed by the second-half of ticket 1, followed by the second half of ticket 2.

It is most certainly against NW's prohibition of back-to-back ticketing.