Canceling first segment of International Flight
 

Hey Guys, quick question here.

About to be a senior at IU, coming home from interning this summer abroad in Barcelona, Spain. Originally, my return flight home was supposed to depart from Barcelona to Heathrow and then Heathrow to O'Hare in Chicago.

I'm already in London now, therefore I don't need the first segment of my flight anymore. I'm not looking for a refund on the first segment, just looking for advice on how to properly cancel this and still be able to make it home to Chicago. I did purchase travel insurance, if that helps. Long time reader, first time poster! Thanks for the help.

Mark

Hi,

Welcome to flyertalk!

I would talk to whoever issued your ticket as if you simply cancel the first segement and do not show up in BCN the whole itineray may be cancelled. You may be able to change your ticket to start from London ( but even if it is possible it may be costly to do so.)

Is this part of a return ticket ( ie USA-BCN -LON-USA) or just a one way ticket?

Cancelling part of the ticket is likely to be expensive and you may have two options;

(1) get a cheap LON-BCN on a low cost carrier such as Easyjet ( but BA/IB may have cheap fares) ticket to start the return leg

(2) swallow the cost of the ticket purchased and get a cheap one way LON-USA ticket.

I would take to your ticket issuer in the first instance about the change costs ( if possible)

Regards and good luck

TBS

As mentioned you must fly the first sector or the ticket is automatically cancelled. You have to get the ticket reissued and this is almost always a lot more money (typically thousands more, also you become liable to pay the UK departure tax, which is not charged for transit, so that is about $80 additional tax right there. Travel insurance usually does not pay for voluntary reroutes. Good luck.

Welcome to FT!

Whether this is a one-way or (more likely from the sounds of it) the back end of a return ticket, not showing up for BCN-LHR will cancel the rest of the itinerary (never mind about refund) unless you have a fully-flexible ticket. I will venture to guess that as a senior at IU (whatever that may be) this is not the case.

There are thousand of threads on this in FT. Travel insurance will not cover this scenario

I would suggest that may be = will be in this case.

I think that option 1 is the cheaper option.

Good luck!

You have already flown the first segment of the itinerary and should call the carrier first and then the issuer. There are a lot more facts in your post than they need to know and which will confuse anyone on the phone. I would just give them the basics which are that you are in London and don't need the London inbound segment and ask what your options are.

If the 2 segments are on different airlines (the OP doesn't state whether or not they are - but it is very possible) then the onward flight may or may not be cancelled. I have seen both happen.

I suspect (but don't know, of course) that this is all on one PNR. Would you risk it? I wouldn't.

Even if it is one PNR, it could still be on different airlines. I wouldn't risk it either, though. But if the OP will otherwise throw away the ticket and buy a new one, it might be interesting to know.

For those who are interested (anecdotal, I know.)

I once had KHI-DXB-LHR EK and LHR-YYZ-YUL AC on one ticket. I no-showed for KHI-DXB but my LHR-YYZ-YUL segments stayed intact (and I could even complete OLCI for them). I didn't end up using any of the ticket and had it refunded, but it was an interesting anomoly nevertheless.

Something similar happened when I had a YYZ-LHR (AC) and VIE-JFK (OS) LGA-YYZ (AC) ticket - and I no-showed for VIE-JFK but LGA-YYZ stayed in tact.

If this is your return and it is a connection BCN-LHR-ORD and you miss BCN-LHR nothing should happen. This is because most computers cancel the itin after the following day. They give it an extra day to allow for irrops and various other reasons. So many passengers miss flights during irrops, agents would be doing nothing other than 'opening' tickets.

Having said this, it is still risky.

I can recall about three instances where this was not the case (ie flight two was cancelled resulting from a no-show to flight one) so I really wouldn't bet my return flight on this.

Interesting. I can believe this as it was booked through two different systems.

Final Outcome
 

Hey Everybody,

Thanks for such a warm and welcoming response regarding my situation. After speaking with British Airways Customer Service, my only option was to reroute the flight or else the final segment would have been cancelled. This ended up costing me about $400. Thanks for the input and I look forward to posting in the future!

Mark

Welcome to FT!

Welcome to FT. our success rate of making you into a Flying/Milage addict/whore/guru is quite high. Next time you'll fly that extra leg to get more EQM/RDM/Segments.