threeoh

Yes.

If you included dates, times, and constraints someone might offer some creative alternatives.

TraconSFO

Yea its the latter. I get into LHR on a Sunday, leave for ZRH on the Monday.
6am flight Monday changing to a 5pm Monday flight is gonna cost me +$4500
Not sure how UAL or Swiss is impacted by a later $120 flight.

Leaving SFO on United bus class 1 stop ok
Arrive LHR by 11pm local 12 May
Depart LHR after 5pm local 13 May
Arrive BSL or ZRH by 8am local 14 May
Depart BSL or ZRH anytime on 15 May
Arrive TLV anytime on 15 May
Depart TLV anytime 19 or 20 May on United bus class back to SFO 1 stop ok

I dont really care how i get from LHR to BSL or ZRH or to TLV

Thanks for any help!

mduell

Airfare is not sold on a cost plus basis.

It's all about what they think they can get.

cricketer

Do you have to fly UA? Fly TK and I'm sure you can bring that down a whole lot.

threeoh

I think it gets down in price if you split it up. What price would you be happy with?

Example:

Business class itinerary:
May 11th: UA 44 SFO-ZRH arrive 10:20am May 12th
[fly r/t to LON on separate ticket here]
May 15th: LX 252 ZRH-TLV
May 19th: LX 257 TLV-ZRH connecting to UA 45 ZRH-SFO (there are other options for ~$100 more if you don't want to leave at 5am)
Cost $6,109

Nested cheap itinerary:
ZRH-LON various options, e.g.:
May 12th ZHR-LHR BA 719 7:40pm landing 8:25pm
May 13th LHR-ZHR BA 720 7:45pm landing 10:35pm
Cost $138

I think that complies with your stated requirements, including UA metal TATL. You have two unprotected separate ticket connections in ZHR but one is 10 hours (with danger of missing a frequent inexpensive shorthaul) and one is over 24 hours.

Total cost ~$6,247

TravelLawyer

Have you tried multi-segments and just don't include the LHR-ZRH segment altogether? Then book the connecting flight separately?

SFO-LHR United
LHR-ZRH Swiss
ZRH-TLV Swiss
TLV-SFO United

jsloan

What's happening is that you're adding a stopover at LHR. The $6132 price is a D fare from SFO to TLV and a Z fare on the return. The fare allows stopovers, but only one in each direction, and only at a specified list of cities (including ZRH, but not LON).

There are two realistic alternatives. The first is to try to arrive later on Sunday night into LHR, but that seems to have inventory issues. If you can find a flight where you'd stay in LHR for less than 24 hours, though, that'd do the trick. The second is to split it up, either as suggested by threeoh or, if you want to save some money, fly SFO-MUC instead of SFO-ZRH. That gets you down to a Z fare in both directions for $4703.14 for the first ticket and about €200 for BA nonstops in economy for the second.

I tried that. That would work if LHR were a stopover point on the SFO-TLV discount fare. Unfortunately, it's not, so the fare goes way up when you try this, as it has to go up to a J fare.

TraconSFO

I have some mtgs in London 13May so I could maybe find something that only keeps me there 24hrs.

Nuts and bolts are:
Mtgs 9-4pm in London 13May
Mtgs 9-4pm flexible in Basel 14May (ZRH seemed to work better on flights, hour train ride)
Mtgs 9-4pm flexible in TLV 20May I wanted to spend a few days in TLV.

UAL is my prime vendor being at SFO but any OW or SA layflat would do if it gets me points/status.

Maybe I can make IST my base and fly TK

SFO-IST
IST-LHR
LHR-BSL
BSL-TLV
TLV-IST
IST-SFO

sfo

Have booked award travel YVR LHR on AC and then connecting LHR to HAM on EW, flights are one way. Is there a problem if I decide not to take the connecting flight? Carry on only. Thanks

mahasamatman

Technically, yes. It's hidden city ticketing.
Realistically, no.

sfo

Ok, even though it is 70K for travel to either LHR or HAM, The reason being that it may not be offered on the non stop just to LHR?

jsloan

The biggest problem would be if YVR-LHR were cancelled or delayed and you got re-routed; if you found yourself on YVR-FRA-HAM, you might be in a bit of a pickle.

Yeah, I wouldn't be concerned about a one-off, although if this booking were within the last 24 hours, I'd just call to cancel the second leg. Also, HCT isn't much of a problem on partner award flights, as there's usually not a fare difference to evade.

In theory that's possible. In practice, I don't think UA is going to marry partner segments together like that, and if they did, I'd say there's a pretty good chance an agent could fix it -- just say "the search was broken and I couldn't get it to come up by itself; can you please drop the extra leg?" The worst that can happen is that they say no.

sfo

All fixed, called UA, they re-booked the flight just to LHR, no charge. Thanks to all above for your comments and suggestions.

Kacee

It would not have been a problem. You just would have been offloaded from LHR-HAM when you no-showed.

cleopatra2

Hi all,

I have read though much of this huge thread, but I want to get some advice on my own particular situation.

Two months ago I booked frequent flyer tickets on United Airlines/Star Alliance. These flights are still 8 months out. On one single booking I have the following flights:

Rochester to Newark - United
Newark to Stockholm - United
Stockholm to Helsinki - SAS (operated by City jet)

8 days later

Vilnius to Warsaw - LOT
Warsaw to Gdansk - LOT

4 days later

Gdansk to Warsaw - LOT
Warsaw to O'Hare - LOT
O'Hare to Rochester - United

Again all this is one booking created with one standard 60,000 mile United award (booked on United's website). One confirmation/record locator covers the whole thing.

I have now noticed that that the third flight (SAS - Stockholm to Helsinki) has been "schedule changed" to be 3 hours later giving me a whopping 7 hours in the Stockholm airport and making me miss my event in Helsinki. Of course I called United looking for an earlier flight, but they could offer me nothing that was an improvement.

United has not sent me an email detailing this change, I noticed it when logging into United.com.

I have some possible options I would like you to comment on:

1) Do not accept or reject the schedule changes as of now - just wait and see if more schedule changes come over the next few months and give me more flight options.
2) Buy a cheap $60 one way ticket from Stockholm to Helsinki and skip my scheduled but awful and useless Stockholm to Helsinki segment.

Now the reason that this post is in this thread is that skipping this one segment will likely cancel all my remaining 5 flight segments - right?

Even though this is mult-city across four airlines, skipping that single and only SAS segment will zap all that follows on all airlines - correct?

Thanks and if you have any other suggestions I'd love to hear them.

Cleo