I need to buy a one-way ticket to Canada (I’m moving there), and Air Canada is the only airline that goes to the destination city. As is often the case, their one-way fare is much more expensive than the return price.
Is there anything to stop me from buying the cheaper return ticket an just not using the second part? Apparently this is called “throwaway ticketing”, but I have no idea if it might cause me some trouble.
I’ve done this before, when I moved from South Africa to the United States. I bought a round trip ticket, but the return leg was something like a year after the initial leg (I think this was the furthest that could be booked). This was over three years ago, and I abandoned the return leg. So far so good: no trouble flying, no being whisked away to secret detention centers, etc.
I can’t imagine this would be a really big deal. People miss flights all the time. As long as you didn’t check in I don’t think it would freak anyone out.
Might it be mannerly to let the airline know so they can use the seat for someone else?
They overbook regardless of your manners.
There is a way to get burned on ticket schemes similar to this but I am certain this isn’t one of them. There isn’t anything illegal about what you plan to do and the airlines won’t black-ball you for it. Why should they care? People skip return flights for all kinds of reasons.
What they don’t like is people that buy a ticket for a certain destination yet really want to get off at a stopover airport because the ticket is cheaper that way. That sends their systems into a tizzy. You aren’t doing that though so don’t worry about it.
I’ve done the same thing without any difficulties at all. They really don’t care.
I once bought a ticket routed Penang, Malaysia - Bangkok, Thailand - Kathmandu, Nepal, and then got on in Bangkok. Because it was cheaper than anything I could get going just Bangkok - Kathmandu. No one cared that the first portion was still in the ticket, unused.
Years ago, before they got wise to it, you could use tickets in reverse order. Instead of paying Canadian fares to Asia, when in Asia buy a return open end ticket and use it in reverse order. But they stopped that once they saw what was happening.
I think it is buying two roundtrip tickets to make a single trip that gets them pissed. Sounds crazy but people will do that to avoid higher prices on certain days (e.g. the ticket is cheaper if you stay more than three days but want to return in one day).
I may be misremembering but it was something like that.
Slightly off-topic, but I once asked a Sydney travel agent to sell me a ticket: Sydney - Hong Kong - Bangkok - Hong Kong - Sydney.
He told me, “I can do that, but better for you if I just sell you SYD - HKG - SYD, and you go to a Hong kong travel agent and buy HKG - BKK - HGK yourself. It’s cheaper.”
So I did. Was he unusually honest?
My Dad used to to that quite often (or the company he worked for did). They had a branch up north in a small town that was open for 1 day a week, for which he flew up and back the same day. The tickets were for 1 week round-trips though, which for insane airline reasons were significantly cheaper. What was most amusing was he wasn’t the only person ever going up there, so he might fly up as himself, but back on Bob Coworker’s return ticket. Meant for some secret-agent moments if he met a friend at the airport. 
I can’t remember how long ago this was… I imagine airline security wouldn’t like it for a start.
Not a problem.
The only real caveat I can think of when doing this is if you (1) Have a lot of frequent flyer miles with that carrier and (2) make a habit of it. In that case, the airlline might notice this, take exception to it, and close your frequent flyer account.
I say they might. I’ve done the same thing described a few times a year on occasion and no one ever said a word to me about it. I think you would have to do it fairly often. Personally, I have never heard of any frequent flyer friends that got burned for doing it, either. But again, they didn’t make it a regular practice.
I was wondering about this just last night. I saw that flights from Dublin to NYC are $800 or something like that while flights to Orlando are $400 via NYC!
Urk, I’ve done exactly that in Europe. I needed to get a one-way flight from Brussels to Edinburgh it was going to cost a fortune but I was visiting Amsterdam the next month and it turned out it was cheaper to buy a return from Belgium to Scotland via Amsterdam and just not do the Amsterdam -> Brussels hop on the way back.
I always imagined it would just look like I missed my connection – which must happen to people all the time. Certainly I’ve not had anyone question me about it, although I don’t believe I’ve flown with KLM since then.
That’s called a “hidden city” discount. It’s an old trick, and still fairly useful, even though the airlines are well aware of its existence.
If you want to go Dublin to NYC on a one-way trip, yes, you can book that Dublin-Orlando flight that connects in NYC. Just get off the plane at NYC and you’ve saved $400.
Two warnings:
You can only consider this as a one-way trip, regardless of whether you’d booked a one-way or round-trip itinerary. Once you’ve left the airport, and aren’t on the NYC-Orlando segment, the airline will cancel the rest of the itinerary.
If you want to return to Dublin, you will need to book an NYC to somewhere trip, connecting in Dublin as a separate itinerary.
You can not check bags. The bags will go to Orlando.
Not true, the bags must be collected to go through Customs in the US. At least that’s
the way it’s always been when I’ve travelled to the US and had a connecting flight to another US city.
Ah, you’re probably right about that. It completely slipped my mind that the Dublin you’re thinking of is in Ireland, rather than the Dublin that’s about 30 miles east of here. Never mind that there’s no airport there. :smack:
I’ve done what the OP describes (flew from Madrid to Lyon on a round-trip ticket and threw out the return) and didn’t have a problem. But that was about 15 years ago, and I’ve read about this in the last year or so and some airlines are clamping down. In some cases, they have charged the customer’s credit card for the difference if they fail to use a return leg. I don’t have specific cites but that would be the worst-case scenario, so you’re not any worse off anyway.
Once variation I used to take advantage of was the weekly trip for business. Flying out Monday, return Friday, you don’t get a cheaper price because there’s no Saturday stay. Since you’re traveling every week though, you can book two trips, one leaving Monday, returning a week from Friday, and another ticket leaving the destination on Friday and returning Monday. This way you get two Saturday night stays, and cheaper tickets. Of course if you do this on the same airline, it might raise eyebrows.
The other thing I was able to take advantage of was the full priced ticket. I had to buy one for work, but I got bumped on the way there, and got a voucher for a flight credit. I used that voucher to buy my return, canceled the remainder of the full priced ticket, and pocketed it. Easy way to make $400. 
If you do this double ticketing (I forget the term the airlines use) use different airlines. If you use the same airline, they will get real upset and try to charge you a pile of money. I unknowingly did this once on a business trip (booked a two week trip, found out I had to be home on that weekend, booked a second RT ticket to come home on the weekend.)
A year later the airline notified me via my travel agent that I was going to be charged an additional $700 for defrauding them. :eek:
Thankfully due to American Express Travel’s lack of competence I never saw the charge.
My husband has to do this all the time. He’ll invariably be somewhere, 24 hours away from coming home, and have to go somewhere else for an emergency client meeting or something.
Once you’re there, call the airline and tell them you won’t be using the second half of your ticket, you’ve had a change in schedule. Depending on the cost of the ticket and fare structure, you may even get a credit that you can apply to another flight within a year.
One of the other grad students is from Argentina, and flights are much cheaper if you buy them there than here in the US. So she plans all of her vacation travel home as round-trip flights from Argentina: Argentina to Montana at the end of Christmas break, with a return to Argentina some time in the summer. Then, a couple of weeks later, another flight from Argentina to Montana, returning at the beginning of the next Christmas break. The downside is, she’s pretty much locked in to going home twice a year.