WTF @ making airline reservations

[bignateyk]

I don't get it. My wife and I are currently scheduled for round trip flights to Rome, and I used reward miles to book them a year ago. The flight is SCE->IAD->FCO both ways.

It turns out that she has a conference for work in Barcelona the following week after we were supposed to return from Italy, so we thought we would re-schedule to go from FCO->BCN, BCN->IAD->SCE. No point in coming back to the US, only to go back over a few days later.

So I called them up and they can't just refund my reward miles for half the trip, but I can cancel all together and get all my miles back, and then just pay to book the flight. This is where I get confused.

Cheapest ROUND TRIP flight from State College (SCE) to Rome (FCO) is $800/person

Cheapest ONE WAY flight from State College to Rome is $2000/person. On the exact same day.

What the fuck? This is using United, but I checked cheaptickets.com, and it was similar for all airlines.

So it is cheaper for me to book round trip tickets and then just not show up for half the itinerary apparently.

 

[Homerboy]

Trips like this you go to an agent.

 

[DesiPower]

I don't get it. My wife and I are currently scheduled for round trip flights to Rome, and I used reward miles to book them a year ago. The flight is SCE->IAD->FCO both ways.

It turns out that she has a conference for work in Barcelona the following week after we were supposed to return from Italy, so we thought we would re-schedule to go from FCO->BCN, BCN->IAD->SCE. No point in coming back to the US, only to go back over a few days later.

So I called them up and they can't just refund my reward miles for half the trip, but I can cancel all together and get all my miles back, and then just pay to book the flight. This is where I get confused.

Cheapest ROUND TRIP flight from State College (SCE) to Rome (FCO) is $800/person

Cheapest ONE WAY flight from State College to Rome is $2000/person. On the exact same day.

What the fuck? This is using United, but I checked cheaptickets.com, and it was similar for all airlines.

So it is cheaper for me to book round trip tickets and then just not show up for half the itinerary apparently. And FBI and CIA looking all over the world for me...

Fixed for you

Go the travel agents, like a real human one, they sometimes have better deals on internationals

 

[SearchMaster]

Yes, it's always been that way.

You can do the "not show up" thing, but be aware this only works if the portion you use is the first portion and not the return. If you don't show up for the first trip, the whole ticket is usually canceled.

 

[akshatp]

Yes, it's always been that way.

You can do the "not show up" thing, but be aware this only works if the portion you use is the first portion and not the return. If you don't show up for the first trip, the whole ticket is usually canceled.

This.

And no, the CIA/FBI will not come looking for you.

 

[kranky]

Be sure to ask what gives you the lowest fare for your roundtrip that will become one-way - including a Saturday night stay, a minimum 7-day stay, minimum 14-day stay, etc. It won't matter since you aren't using the return portion of the ticket anyway, but you might as well get the lowest fare.