Unused portion of round trip ticket

[mikewrit]

Not a new quandary on this board, but we are booked on a trans-Atlantic repositioning cruise next April ending in Barcelona. The cheapest one-way ticket back home is considerably more than twice the price of a roundtrip ticket from Barcelona to home and back. What doe the airline do about it if we simply do not use the return portion of the reservation? Come to our house and steal our luggage? Is there any somewhat legal or legitimate way to sell the unused portion to somebody who needs to get from PDX to Barelona?

[betterthanworking]

Not a new quandary on this board, but we are booked on a trans-Atlantic repositioning cruise next April ending in Barcelona. The cheapest one-way ticket back home is considerably more than twice the price of a roundtrip ticket from Barcelona to home and back. What doe the airline do about it if we simply do not use the return portion of the reservation? Come to our house and steal our luggage? Is there any somewhat legal or legitimate way to sell the unused portion to somebody who needs to get from PDX to Barelona?

 

I don't think you can sell it on ebay. Airline tickets are usually non-transferable. I don't know what the airline could do if you didn't show up. They have no way of knowing you did it deliberately.

[Twickenham]

Technically, the airline could refare your ticket to the one-way price if it was demonstrated that you had deliberately purchased a round-trip with no intention of using the return portion. In practice, they probably won't do anything if you don't make a habit of it.

FWIW, ITA is showing a one-way option on Lufthansa-Condor-Alaska with stops in FRA and LAS for $746.

[6rugrats]

As stated, airlines don't allow this and if you don't use the second half, they can come back and charge you the difference between what you paid and the price of a one-way ticket. Not too likely if you don't make a habit of it. Make sure you are careful booking if you decide to do this; you want the first portion to be the leg you are actually using. As soon as you skip a leg, the entire ticket will be cancelled.

 

Most airlines will not allow a name change on a ticket, so selling it is out. You can throw it away, but you can pay the change fee (usually $250 for an international ticket), and if there's any remaining value, the originally ticketed passenger can use it to purchase another ticket. You are usually required to use this voucher before the one year anniversary date of the original ticket purchase. If you want to to this, call the airline and cancel before the date of your flight, or you'll have no remaining value left.

[mikewrit]

Thanks for the quick answers, all. (Love your sig line, Twick!)

[scottbee]

Not a new quandary on this board, but we are booked on a trans-Atlantic repositioning cruise next April ending in Barcelona. The cheapest one-way ticket back home is considerably more than twice the price of a roundtrip ticket from Barcelona to home and back. What doe the airline do about it if we simply do not use the return portion of the reservation? Come to our house and steal our luggage? Is there any somewhat legal or legitimate way to sell the unused portion to somebody who needs to get from PDX to Barelona?

 

There are a number of options. Firstly there are some airlines that sell full discount transatlantic air fares. Aer Lingus is the main one, but in/out of barcelona another to look at is Pakistan Intl; who have 5th freedom rights on BCN-ORD. Also Air Transat (a Canadian charter airline) and Condor (a german charter carrier)

 

 

Second, why not take a second cruise BCN -> MIA in the fall?

[mikewrit]

That second cruise from Barcelona is a tempting suggestion, Scottbee. I'm wondering how far one can push the time between flights on a round-trip. Ah, who am I kidding? We're going to be on generic bread and tap water to cover the bites for the two cruises we're already overbooked for.

[greatam]

 

Most airlines will not allow a name change on a ticket, so selling it is out. You can throw it away, but you can pay the change fee (usually $250 for an international ticket), and if there's any remaining value, the originally ticketed passenger can use it to purchase another ticket. You are usually required to use this voucher before the one year anniversary date of the original ticket purchase. If you want to to this, call the airline and cancel before the date of your flight, or you'll have no remaining value left.

 

I don't understand this at all. IF you call before the flight to cancel and IF you try to use the residual value at a later date, sure seems to me you are raising a big red flag. I can just see the questions-"how did you get home from XXX?" Could you please provide proof?? Oh, you can't via another airline. Oh, you took a cruise home??? When did you book this cruise??? And on and on.

 

I believe the bottom line in this scenario would be-How 'bout we refare your ticket because you obviously were planning on using your RT ticket as a one way??? NOW you owe the airline money.

 

If you are deliberately using a throw away ticket, DON'T ask for FF miles, DON'T call to cancel, DON'T bring attention to what you did. Just take your "bargain" and be happy.

[6rugrats]

We're just going to have to disagree on this. People get sick, arrive late to the airport, miss their flights for other reasons, etc., all the time.

 

I honestly don't think the airline is going to come after you for doing this one time. I cannot imagine an airline employee calling you and questioning you how you got home. You would be under absolutely no obligation to answer this question or provide any type of "proof" to an airline why you didn't take a flight.

[alidor]

Agree - would not call the airlines and the chances of being questioned by them are zero to none. People have gotten caught doing this but it's those various frequent flyers who were maybe flying every week and playing the game. Very easy to catch those by their frequent flyer numbers.

[Donray]

Besides hearing things forth hand, has anyone been asked by an airline to pay one way fare when they failed to used half of a round trip?

 

First hand or second hand only responses.

[PennyAgain]

To start out with, never cancel or fail to take the outgoing part of your tickets as the remainder will be cancelled.

 

If you intend to only use one way of a round trip ticket, do not raise a fuss about doing so, especially on a public BB.

 

Cancel the return part of the ticket once you reach your destination and give others a chance at the seats. Don't give a bunch of explainations. "I need to cancel" is quite sufficient.

 

Then just be quiet about it.

 

I have cancelled the return of a round trip ticket when I had to make other arrangements on the fly with no issues, but I don't make a habit of doing it. I ended up having to buy a new ticket on the same airline to get home (at a much higher cost) when attempt to rebook the return of the original ticket just didn't work out.

 

The better choice is to book a one way ticket.

[alidor]

Frankly, I wouldn't even call and cancel it - just wouldn't show up. Chances are the flight is probably oversold anyway and you just gave another person the seat who may have been bumped off the flight.

[mikewrit]

New directionfor thread, please. I'm checking Aer Lingus, which is so much cheaper than other lines as to seem impossible for one-way flights from Barcelona to JFK or Logan. Reviews in the past couple of years have been skimpy. The line has not been mentioned on this board more than a couple of times, most recently by a person whose luggage was lost in Dublin on the way to Barcelona and only arrived just in time for boarding. Any more recent experiences with the line? One attractive package would put us in Dublin long enough to have a look around and get us back to the states for $516 each. Too good to be true?

[greatam]

New directionfor thread, please. I'm checking Aer Lingus, which is so much cheaper than other lines as to seem impossible for one-way flights from Barcelona to JFK or Logan. Reviews in the past couple of years have been skimpy. The line has not been mentioned on this board more than a couple of times, most recently by a person whose luggage was lost in Dublin on the way to Barcelona and only arrived just in time for boarding. Any more recent experiences with the line? One attractive package would put us in Dublin long enough to have a look around and get us back to the states for $516 each. Too good to be true?

 

 

Aer Lingus is mentioned all the time on this board for decent priced one way tickets to/from Europe.

 

I use AerLingus for my employees that don't care about upgrades all the time. We fly 6-8 employees to Europe 2-3 times per year for food shows. I myself have flown on AerLingus when they were still an AA partner and absolutely love the small airports in Dublin and Shannon.

 

You can take more than a few hours in Dublin if you want at the same price. Grab those tickets at that price. Enjoy!!!

[6rugrats]

They are cheaper because they are priced as true one way tickets. Another advantage to them is that for most of their flights, you can pre-clear immigration and customs for the US in Dublin.

[grandma*knows*best]

New directionfor thread, please. I'm checking Aer Lingus, which is so much cheaper than other lines as to seem impossible for one-way flights from Barcelona to JFK or Logan. Reviews in the past couple of years have been skimpy. The line has not been mentioned on this board more than a couple of times, most recently by a person whose luggage was lost in Dublin on the way to Barcelona and only arrived just in time for boarding.

 

My son flew Aer Lingus from JFK-CDG last December (2011). Aer Lingus lost his luggage for more than a month. He did not receive it until he had been back in NYC for more than a week. Additionally, they lied about why his bag had been misplaced - blamed it on luggage handlers at CDG, when as it turned out, they had nothing to do with it. He did have no problem getting Aer Lingus to pay him for the clothes and other items he had to buy since he had none of his belongings for 3 weeks in Europe (somewhere around $800.00).

[Jade13]

Have you tried Aer Lingus? We just flew them from Amsterdam to the US and they were great. Lots of leg room in coach. Good entertainment system. We went right through immigration and customs in Dublin! We would fly them again.

[6rugrats]

Have you tried Aer Lingus? We just flew them from Amsterdam to the US and they were great. Lots of leg room in coach. Good entertainment system. We went right through immigration and customs in Dublin! We would fly them again.

 

Just note that you only preclear US customs and immigration for flights that leave before 4:00 p.m.

 

Jade, were you sitting in a bulkhead seat, in the exit row or in premier class? Because seat pitch on their planes is 31 inches in economy, which really isn't different than most airlines.

[Globaliser]

We're just going to have to disagree on this. People get sick, arrive late to the airport, miss their flights for other reasons, etc., all the time.

You're correct in relation to simply not flying the return half of the ticket. If you don't make a habit of it, you're unlikely to get pursued by the airline.

 

It's the rest of your advice that is, IMHO, not so sound. If you have a half-flown round-trip ticket and you ask for a voucher for the "residual value" of the ticket, that usually can't be calculated until the actual travel has been re-fared. Which means that there will be no residual value, plus the airline has now worked out how much you've underpaid by.