Am I allowed to deliberately 'miss' a connecting flight?

April 1, 2017 2:56 AM

I accidentally booked a flight to LA without realising my Cali tour starts in San Francisco. Dammit.

Hi,

I booked a flight from London to Los Angeles (Return) which has a stopover in San Francisco. The connecting flight is with a different airline.

London -> SFO (Austrian Airlines)
SFO -> LAX (United Airlines)

I realised after I had booked it that the tour I want to go on starts in San Francisco and ends in LA. The LA->LA tour is unavailable. If I go to LA I will have to take a bus trip back to San Francisco to be there for the tour (it starts the next day - I do have time but it seems like a waste). Is it okay to let the airline know once I land in San Francisco that I will not be continuing on to LA? Will I be 'charged' extra for it/would it be considered a cancellation? It's not an immediate connection but a 1hr 45 minute stopover so if I inform them, no one will be waiting for me to get the flight. I have seen a few posts on Google about airlines cancelling return flights because of this but is this because passengers don't inform them? My entire return flight is with United Airlines. I bought the ticket through an online aggregator.

Additional info: I won't be taking any 'hold'/check-in luggage.

Thanks.

posted by ihaveyourfoot to Travel & Transportation (22 answers total)

I have tried the "skip a connecting flight but let the airline know" thing and, uh, it did not work.

Once you skip part of your outbound route (even if they know in advance), they will cancel your return flights, citing a violation of the terms of carriage you agreed to when you booked the flights.
posted by schroedingersgirl at 3:23 AM on April 1, 2017 [13 favorites]

Yes, once you miss one leg the rest get cancelled if they are all on the same ticket. So unless you booked one return flight to SFO and a separate transaction for the domestic parts you're going to have to fly all the legs or bite the bullet and officially change the ticket. Given the distance, time and cost to travel back to the right departure points for your tour/current flights explore how to change your ticket and fees for that first. Compare that to cost for another domestic return flight - lots of connections between the two cities. Takes a long time in the bus, after a long haul flight and all that.
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:38 AM on April 1, 2017

If you no-show on any part of your booked itinerary the rest of your ticket will be cancelled. This is universal.

Call Austrian and ask them to see what the conditions of your ticket are - it may be changeable for a nominal fee (or even a non-nominal fee, but one that reflects the value of not having to do a long bus ride).

The cheapest, one-way, economy class no-baggage LAX to SFO flight bought way in advance is anywhere from $50 to $150 depending on the time and day. Also factor in the extra time you'd be subject to crazy airport prices for food/drinks/etc.

United doesn't have anything to do with this process; Austrian are the ticketing carrier.
posted by mdonley at 3:41 AM on April 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Hmmm. Is Austrian the ticketing carrier, as mdonley suggests? Unclear to me. Was this a Kayak "hacker fare" kind of deal? Do your flights share a record locator #, or does your return flight have a different one? If so, I'd make some calls to see if United has your return leg booked as a one-way flight...

(but do proceed carefully and heed all the hard-earned advice in this thread.)
posted by thejoshu at 4:12 AM on April 1, 2017

This might be OK if the return flight is on a second ticket.

However instead of the bus you might want to consider flying - it will save you 6-plus hours and I see one-way fares as low as $69.
posted by mskyle at 4:45 AM on April 1, 2017

Do call the reservation line, try to pick the lowest time of day and chat nicely, and give up quickly if it's a stickler personality. Try several times, you just might hit a sympathetic agent. Certainly worth a few calls.
posted by sammyo at 5:34 AM on April 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

I've done something similar a few times. It was a connecting flight on the same airline and a week before I was scheduled to fly I called to say I wanted to cancel the first leg at Airport 1--I didn't ask for a refund or anything, it was just more convenient for me to get to Airport 2 and start my journey there. The first time was no problem, the next two times it was a bit of a hassle but I had a good story and in the end, it was okay. This was not a US carrier, it was outside the US with a ticket I'd bought directly from the airline on their website and it was my return flight.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:05 AM on April 1, 2017

Agreeing with what is said here about canceling part of the flight causes the remainder to be canceled. However, once, I was able to do it. It seems to be entirely up to the agent. I called and asked, several times. On the 5th, the guy said, No problem. Done.
posted by falsedmitri at 6:28 AM on April 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

If you do end up in LA and you have to get back to SF, check southwest.com for a cheap fare. Southwest usually isn't included in travel searches like at Expedia. They generally have the lowest rates, and flights all day long from LAX.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:51 AM on April 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Agreeing with what is said here about canceling part of the flight causes the remainder to be canceled.

A bit of nomenclatural persnicketiness: canceling, in the sense of calling up the airline and asking them to change your itinerary, shouldn't have unintended consequences. If they are incapable of removing one leg without removing the whole (which they aren't, although they may be unwilling to do it), they should explicitly be telling you what you're getting before you pull the trigger and do it, and you shouldn't end up getting suddenly inexplicably lacking a return leg.

Skipping, however, in the sense of just not showing up for a flight you still have a ticket for, is much less reliable. If you skip a flight you're breaking the contract of carriage, as mentioned above, and the airline can and will screw with your itinerary without asking your permission.
posted by jackbishop at 6:53 AM on April 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for the info.

Yes it was booked through a company like Kayak. They're called Netflights. The booking is all on one e-ticket with one ticket number and one reference number. They sent me an e-ticket document today and they changed the carrier for the first leg from Austrian to United Airlines. Now all of my flights are with United. Completely bizarre, though it says in the notes 'your flight details may have changed'.

When I booked the ticket it said that any cancellation would cost £100. A bus trip from L.A. to SF costs $7 but yes it would be an all day affair. I would probably buy another flight. It seems insane to fly onward to L.A. knowing I will have to fly back, though.

When I speak to the nice flight agent, do I just refer to it as an amendment cost? Is this amendment basically them cancelling this flight then choosing a new flight or is it them officially letting me get out at SF without cancelling all of my flights? I'm just trying to work out what I am asking for - or is this something for them to worry about?
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 6:58 AM on April 1, 2017

>they changed the carrier for the first leg from Austrian to United Airlines. Now all of my flights are with United.

This is probably a code-sharing thing. The flight will have two or three different airline names and flight numbers on the departure board but it's all one flight.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:38 AM on April 1, 2017

Another alternative which seems ridiculous but might not be is stopping short at San Francisco and letting your return ticket get cancelled. Then buy a single from Los Angeles to London. Norwegian has direct flights from £200-£300 every day (lowest I can see was £184). And WOW Air has ones with changes in Reykjavik for about the same.
posted by ambrosen at 8:34 AM on April 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'd look at the cost of a Southwest airlines flight from LAX to: SFO or OAK(land). (>$100) Then compare it to the cost of changing your currently booked itinerary. It may be that you have to pay the $100 cancellation/change fee but you might also have to pay the difference in cost of your return flight if it is more expensive now than it was when you booked it. It will then be a consideration of costs vs the few extra hours of flying to LAX and back.
posted by CoffeeHikeNapWine at 10:09 AM on April 1, 2017

Get someone on the phone with the airline and explain. They might be able to either waive the change fee or recommend the better deal between cancelling your whole flight and booking something different or just getting an extra flight back to SFO (which I agree would feel like nonsense but is still better than a 6 hr bus ride).
posted by lydhre at 11:01 AM on April 1, 2017

Did you just book this now? You usually get 24 hours to cancel for flights involving the US. If you're still in that time window, consider cancelling and buying a new ticket if, and this is a big if, you can find an appropriately priced ticket for London->SFO, LAX->London.
posted by zachlipton at 1:39 PM on April 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

There are occasionally super-cheap flights from LA to SF or Oakland. Probably less than $100 if you have time to watch for a sale.
posted by salvia at 5:24 PM on April 1, 2017

Response by poster: An update.

I called the airline twice and both times I was told that they couldn't do it because it was booked via an external agent and that I should contact them instead.

The agent contacted United and they wouldn't budge because they won't allow a route change. Even if they did, I would have been charged £180 for the amendment.

Thanks for the Southwest recommendation. They have flights between LA and SF for $59. One is 15 minutes after I land in LAX and the other is 2 hours after. I'm too nervous to book the 15 minute one just in case. Should I be?

Thanks everyone for your help. This is by far the dumbest journey in existence. Let this be a warning to others.
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 3:25 AM on April 2, 2017

Book the 2 hr later flight. 15 minutes is not enough time to change planes and most airlines will not book a ticket with a layover shorter than 40 minutes. If you're conservative, 1 hr for domestic and 2 hrs for international is a good rule of thumb.

If you have any checked baggage, remember that you will also have to collect it, check it again, and go through security again because the fights are not on the same itinerary.
posted by asphericalcow at 6:42 AM on April 2, 2017

I agree, 15 minutes is not enough time to get across LAX.
posted by Duffington at 11:42 PM on April 2, 2017

Book the 2-hr flight. Southwest will likely (not guaranteed) allow you on the earlier flight if you make it early, just go to the gate and ask nicely. FWIW, Southwest is the only U.S. carrier that almost always lets you do this without paying a huge fee.
posted by wnissen at 9:31 AM on April 3, 2017

Response by poster: Cheers, wnissen. I didn't know I could chance it with the earlier flight. Hopefully they'll let me. I booked the 2hr flight in any case.
posted by ihaveyourfoot at 6:10 AM on April 4, 2017