If one were to be naughty and not complete an itinerary as ticketed (i.e. abandoning the last couple of flight sectors, simply because the intermediate point was the real destination and the fare to the ticketed final destination was actually lower than that to the intermediate point), what could the possible consequences be?

Could they claw back any Frequent Flyer points? What about charging the fare difference (between the fare paid to the fare for the higher intermediate point at which the trip was abandoned) to the credit card on which the ticket was issued? Anything else?

If your last sector (or two) were initially left as Open, and you happened to run out of the 12 month validity before it was convenient to take those flights, I believe that it would be a great shame.... Has anyone ever regrettably been faced with this situation?

As far as FF points were concerned, you wouldn't get them as you never took the flight(s). They could hardly be recovered if they hadn't been awarded.

Exactly that happened to me a few times. Could not use the last sectors of RTWs or normal return tickets.
Did not hear anything from anybody about this. Miles for flights taken have been credited.
Usually i buy my tickets in Europe - and there are customer protection laws or regulations in place in most countries which prohibit the airlines of charging extra in that situation.
Customers in the US are far less protected, so at least in theory the airlines could do something, but i never heard about such a case. Anybody experienced such a problem?

Nope - I've done it once with a ticket bought from CX in Paris with no problem. I know someone who did the same with one bought from CX in TPE. Again, no problem.

Well, I hope you folks are right about no adverse consequences. My situation is a little different though, in the sense that I do not have open dated (or indeed future dated) flight sectors. My ticket is a continuous journey over several points all in one go (with multiple OW carriers) - due to HIP restrictions. And I am planning to abandon ship midway, i.e. be checked in for the onward flights but simply not showing up.

'Unterwegs' - I am curious to know (for future reference) how a ticket bought in Europe could protect me more vis-a-vis a ticket bought in Asia or America?

Years ago, when I was more involved in the travel industry, you weren't charged back, but the agency or carrier which issued the ticket was, nearly 100% of the time. More recently, I have heard some sporadic stories about charges to credit cards resulting from fare recalculations after dropping the last sector(s), but this appears to be the rare exception, and not the rule.

Golmaale,

there have been several court decisions in Germany about not using single coupons for flights - all so far in favor of the passenger. There even have been lower court decision that it is ok to use the inbound but not the outbound sector - but no higher court yet.
It seems that the airline try to avoid court cases. They likely don't want to get a higher court deciding against them.
Similar situation in other countries. I happen to have a great travel agent (he is worth more than the fees he charges) who can get me RTWs even starting in Vietnam and other low cost places). So i am buying there.

The only problem i can see is when you check luggage and don't want to have it checked to the final destination. You should come up with some story (like you meet somebody at the airport and want to give him/her a bottle of wine in your checked luggage.....).
You then can feel unwell at your real destination and ask to offload you to avoid beeing a no show and have the flight waiting for you / paging you etc.

Unterwegs

Care to tell us who you travel agent is? I recently enquired of Trailfinders in the UK about the cost of an RTW starting in BKK and was told it is their policy to charge ex UK fares in this case even though the ex BKK fare is much lower. No doubt they pay the correct amount to the airlines so that will be a ncie earner for them!

When did you speak to trailfinders?

The fare rules have recently changed to allow a lower fare to be sold if you're purchasing in any EU country.

Yes, but that's just the rules for one specific ticket type. Trailfinders sells dozens of different types of round the world tickets.

In case you do a lot of premium class tickets and know what you want (e.g. find your own flights, know most of the rules etc) then please send me a private message and i will forward it to my agent.
I don't want to post it here for obvious reasons. He is located in Germany btw.

He posted in the OW forum, so it's not entirely unreasonable to assume that it's an alliance product. Unless it's one of those mini RTW thingies.

There have been posts in the BA forum (tried to do a search, but couldn't find them) whereby somebody purchased an ex-EU fare (ex-EU are generally always cheaper than ex-LON on BA, even though ex-EU transit via LHR), did not travel on the final LHR-(somewhere in Europe) sector, and was stripped of the entire BAEC points for the flights actually flown.

The basis for this (according to BAEC) was that the contract was to fly (using FRA and ORD as examples, but not too sure of the exact details of the situation) FRA-LHR-ORD-LHR-FRA, but by flying FRA-LHR-ORD-LHR, which was a higher fare, the passenger was in breach of the contract, and therefore no BAEC miles were payable for the entire journey.

Opening this up to others who may have read the thread (damned if I can find it) but it might be an issue, and something to be considered.

Dave

Not everything in the OW forum is specifically OW - look how many threads get moved across to the AA forum, and look at the grief that was around here a few months back.......

Dave

I've done this a few times with no issues whatsoever. Once I even got LH to only check my luggage as far as the intermediate point.