I am soon going to be booking an open-jaw trip SFO-MSY outbound and AEX-SFO returning.

I plan to book the UA non-stop for the outbound. However, UA doesn't fly from AEX. So, I plan to book CO for the return (with a connection).

I priced this itinerary out, and both fares are one-way fares. The outbound has a restricted fare (non-refundable), but the return has an unrestricted fare. So, they could easily be written on separate tickets.

What are the advantages and disadvantages to booking these on one ticket?

Would they have to paper tickets in that case? Would booking them as a round-trip reduce my chances of being a selectee? Would it make it more difficult to make changes?

Thanks.

I forgot to ask: will booking them on the same ticket make it more difficult for me to upgrade (with miles)?

My understanding is that when different fares are combined on the same ticket, the most restrictive rules generally apply to the entire ticket. Consequently, your full-fare refundable segment would become non-refundable with a change fee.

That's just an impression; I don't have any actual experience with this situation.

Probably having the two segments in the same PNR would indeed reduce your chances of being a security selectee. However, one-way tickets no longer seem to be an automatic selection as they were in the early days of this program.

One-way tickets can certainly be written electronically (on the airlines I've flown recently, at least).

Shouldn't make any difference

If you want to take advantage of the refundability of the refundable segment, ticket them separately. Also if the outbound is UA and it's on their stock, and you're buying a nonrefundable fare from them, you're going to have to pay $100 if you need to have the ticket reissued. If the Continental segments are fully refundable, changeable you should have no problem making changes to your reservation for the CO segments.. just as long as you don't need to reissue.
If you ticket a reservation on multiple carriers, you're usually going to wind up with paper tickets. The exception is when the carriers have e-ticketing agreements. Not sure who does and who doesn't, but something in the back of my mind tells me that UA and NW might, but that UA and CO do not. I could be wrong on that score.

Thanks very much everyone!

I think I will issue them as two separate tickets. If I'm a selectee, I'll survive. It won't be the first time.


[This message has been edited by alvn (edited Jan 24, 2004).]