I have a question about nested airline tickets that someone probably can quickly give me the answer for. The question is currently only hypothetical but looks like it may become a real consideration (due to work buying some airline tickets and me buying others).

Supposing I have round-trip airline tickets (say from Fly-By-Night airlies) from a city (say Chicago) to another city (say San Francisco) that span a couple of weeks (cheaper rates for weekend stay). It's obvious that if I buy a round-trip FBN ticket over the weekend in the middle from San Francisco to Chicago, the purpose is to circumvent the original fare requirement for a Saturday night stay and FBN would (a) take all my frequent flier points, (b) charge me an enormous amount of money, and (c) leave me on the runway and grin at me as they fly by. Plus I'd never see my luggage again.

However, is it legal to buy a FBN ticket from San Francisco over the weekend in the middle to a city nowhere near the origin (such as Atlanta?) Obviously this isn't to circumvent the Saturday night stay requirement on the first ticket but is it legal? (I suspect it wouldn't be for a city near Chicago, like Milwaukee, but Atlanta is nowhere near).

I know the most common answer that people could give me is to use another airline but there may be a compelling reason (such as extremely cheap fare or desire to get the right frequent flier points.)

Hi, TravelLover. The short answer is no, the airline is not going to get heartburn over this. I've done the same thing you described on several occasions. Last time, I went from VPS-PHL on week 1, returning week 4. Week 2, I went from PHL-IAD and back over the weekend, Week 3 I went from PHL to SFO over the weekend. No problems whatever.

This scenario happens a lot to frequent travelers. Imagine someone flying from the USA to Europe for a 4-month stay, and then they need to fly all over Europe during that period. No rules get violated.

And welcome to the board!

I think back-to-back ticketing is common practice and although airlines may discourage it, I do not think it breaks any rules and you should not be penalised.

If you buy two tickets:-

1. AAA-BBB Monday week 1
BBB-AAA Friday week 2

2. BBB-AAA Friday week 1
AAA-BBB Monday week 2

This gives you two Monday to Friday trips and meets the Saturday night stay rule.

These are two separate tickets and if you took all four flights, I cannot see that you would be breaking any rules at all.

But it's also often the case that buying the two tickets for just one trip (eg first Monday to Friday) can be cheaper than buying a single ticket only. This also is common practice. And again there seems to be precious little that airlines can do about it. Apart from losing money due to the cheaper ticket price, if the customer does not cancel their unused flights
the airlines get stuck with more no-show problems.

Where more than one airline serves the AAA to BBB route then the two tickets could be bought on separate airlines and then there is zero that either airline could do.

I remember another post on this board suggesting that one just not purchase the tickets in the same transaction. Then the argument that one was in city B, and a last-minute change of plans forced an intermediate return to city A, becomes plausible.

it is legal - but it may be against the airlines ticket rules - no problem for the costumer, on rare occasions some problem for the ticketing agency;

Don't worry:

travellover: Beware of the "real" back to back tickets. All the bad things you stated can, and have, happened! Plus if you have a corporate travel department, they may also be miffed.

Solid advice can be found on this site, and some of the people are almost always correct, but beware of differences regionally and in various countries.

I have flown on such a ticket a couple times in the past. I only used half of each ticket , as I could not coordinate another trip. The fare was less than $680 for the two sets of tickets to DC on the last trip vs. $1250 for the last minute, no Saturday full coach ticket alternative. Our accounts noticed the transaction and jumped all over me! Fortunately, I had stapled the other 1/2 's to my expense account. They thought I might be benefiting in some way!!! As if it mattered, them saving $600! So I stopped. I was luck to not get "caught" by the airlines. They pick you out when you are a no show on a leg.

Thanks, everyone, for some good solid advice. I have no intentions of cheating the airlines of legitimate revenue based on Saturday night stay requirements but at the same time I don't want to have problems for something legitimate.

Nested tickets is legitimate, and can save lots of $$$

Last summer I wanted to fly from TUS to EWR with only 7 days advance notice. The lowest TUS-EWR fare was more then $700 higher then the combined TUS-LAX and LAX-EWR fares on America West. (Guess who also flies TUS-LAX) I had the entire itinerary issued on one ticket, stayed on the same planes at LAX. I was told that I had to fly the PHX-LAX-PHX segments, I couldn't skip them and stand-by for the next flight for my ultimate destination. What the heck, for $700 and some extra segments and miles, and if that wasn't enough I got Gold elite upgrades for all except one of the TUS-PHX segments.

another safe way of doing this is to buy a one way to the remote city, then buy Friday to Sunday roundtrips back to the desired home city.

Let's bring this old topic back to life!

There seems to be a confusion between back-to-back and nested tickets. I don't know if I use the correct terms, but if I buy tickets as TravelLover, Austman and Old Gold states, it is legal.

I have the same situation (and had it once before). Both times I called Delta and specifically told them the whole situation. Both times I was told it is OK to do this, providing I use all segments of both tickets.

If it wouldn't be OK, I would guess that the airlines would more or less keep us hostage at the far end for the duration of the trip our companies are sending us on. I really wouldn't be able to purchase my own ticket, not even on a competing airline, if this was illegal (using that term loosly).

If anybody has opposing inside information, please let us hear it.

/Pete

Nesting an itinerary from heck pushed me over Elite status for last year.

AAA-BBB Sunday
BBB-CCC Monday
CCC-BBB Thursday
BBB-DDD Friday
DDD-BBB Sunday AM
BBB-EEE Sunday PM
EEE-BBB Monday PM
BBB-AAA Tuesday AM

All of these had to connect through a hub. 18 segments in 9 days.

------------------
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Jon, if that's the best you can do...

Nested tickets are NEVER illegal. It's just against some airline's rules because it lets consumers get around their Saturday night stay requirement.

If I was travelling out of my own pocket, I would definitely use nested-tickets. For work, I stay legit since our corporate travel also discourages gettting around the Saturday night rule. They recommend buying a one-way to your destination (ex. ORD-SFO), then round-trips (SFO-ORD) for as long as you need to commute between the two cities and just drop the last return coupon(s) when you get back to your origin for the last time (ex. ORD, discarding the ORD-SFO return).

seawolf,

If back to back tickets are against the airline's tariff, then it is illegal. It's called fraud--when you book the outside ticket, you represent to the airline that you will be going out Day 1 and back Day 4--when in fact, you intend to come back day 2 and go out again day 3.

The airline relies on your repesentation, and charges you only the discount fare, when, in fact, your travels mandate full fare.

All three requisite elements for fraud are there--representation, reliance and loss.

That being said, no airline is going to turn this over to the police--they will take there own remedies and be done with it.

AC*SE

You said it!!!!

If a person want to use back to back then by all means use 2 airlines. I believe this takes care of airline rules, morality and cost. Naturally, this is not available in all markets.