igotjays22

Luckily my employer will never know because I get reimbursed for travel well in advance :-)

garykung

I believe some of you read OP incorrectly.

IAH-BDL is the last segment of a reservation. I doubt UA will simply cancel a segment to create such a hidden city ticketing.

SDC won't work as I doubt UA will allow backtracking like this (going East but back to the West?)

I would say if OP will have to risk it by ticketing the conflicted change anyway.

jsloan

This is a good point.

OP: Are you connecting in IAH? (e.g., AUS-IAH-BDL?) Or are you originating in IAH (IAH-BDL nonstop)? It makes a huge difference.

igotjays22

My original itinerary is fly down Monday morning BDL-IAH (nonstop) and fly out IAH-BDL on Thursday evening. The IAH-BDL is what I want to change to go to IAH-SFO....I'll need to create a new itinerary to get back to IAH a few days later.

jsloan

OK, then the advice you've been getting has been sound. garykung was worried that you were actually talking about trying to turn, e.g., BDL-IAH-AUS / AUS-IAH/BDL into BDL-IAH-AUS / AUS-IAH, and then buying IAH-SFO, which wouldn't have worked nearly as well.

Just making sure.

garykung

Now it makes more sense.

FYI, in the future:

Usually, this indicates to us that you are flying to somewhere else and connecting flights, such as SFO-IAH-BDL. If the last leg was dropped, the ticket would become SFO-IAH, and result in a practice known as "hidden city ticketing" (i.e. you are not ticketed for your intended destination but a stop in between), which is prohibited by airlines.

In your case, you are booked BDL-IAH roundtrip (even there may be stops in between). In this case, IAH-BDL is the return portion of your reservation.

The solution of your problem is simple - simply ignore the fact that you have a return portion of your reservation (i.e. IAH-BDL), and book your new reservation as you need.

garykung

Re-post for OP due to New Member Limit (received via PM):

jsloan

If you simply ignore it, UA is liable to cancel one or the other. (It's also possible that they wouldn't do anything at all). However, since they might pick the wrong one, and since cancellation is free, if you are already in IAH, my advice is that you should call and cancel the one that you don't want (IAH-BDL).

garykung

Well...you can cancel IAH-BDL if you want to do so. But there is not really a point.

jsloan

The point is to avoid UA's duplicate reservation detection system from finding it and cancelling one or the other (or both, actually). See Colliekr's post earlier in the thread.

azepine00

Countless ppl with same names fly at the same time. No checked bags, don't use your ffn on tbe second reservation and ummm typos can happen when entering birthday...

jsloan

It costs nothing to call and cancel the unnecessary flight. I see no value whatsoever in the continued suggestions of subterfuge.

txaggiemiles

If OP has not flown the outbound leg yet, can he easily cancel the return only? I’m asking because I’ll often book two one ways domestic for situations like this. (Which I know has a whole other thread dedicated to the topic but I’ve never fully grasped whether there’s a benefit)

jsloan

I believe that requires a reissue, but I suspect that I'll be quickly corrected if that's not true. So, that would be a no. However, given the circumstances for the OP, I suspect the outbound leg has already been flown.

emcampbe

Regardless of when you get reimbursed, this is almost certainly considered fraud - submitting/expensing a flight you are no longer taking. Also 110% unethical. Some employers might be nice and give you a warning on a first offense - many will consider this a firing event without a warning.

also, people can often figure out things you might not think they would know, especially when you’re blinded by trying to pull a fast one. Different strokes for different folks, of course, but personally Id advise that unless you are self-employed, it’s probably a good idea to straighten this out with your employer.

pretty sure canceling a segment like that requires a re-issue.

Depending on the rules of the OPs ticket, there may also be a fare difference - while many especially domestic fares are one way, so it wouldn’t, there are still some that aren’t. If the latter is the case, you’d need to pay a fare difference to the one way fare. This might be a minor expense, or might not. YMMV.