Can you do this?

[Free4Life11]

Not related to Disney...

But my mom needs to fly to Minnesota (we live in Chicago) for her reunion. My dad will be driving up a few days after her to drop my sisters off at Summer Camp, and then she would drive back home with him.

A one way is $433 and completely ridiculous, where as a round-trip is only $151.

Now if she flew up with the one way, is there any way that a different family member could fly back? I am considering driving up with my dad, BUT as I work it would be difficult to stay for more than the weekend.

Is that possible? If I called the airline directly, would it be possible?

If push comes to shove, we could always just get the round-trip and then not show up for the return.

-Matt

 

[CarolMN]

I don't think you will be able to do this. You MAY be able to pay the change fee ($100) and change the name on the return ticket, but I don't think the airline will allow you to do even that. They've always been reluctant to make any name changes to tickets once purchased and the events of 9/11 have probably eliminated any chance of finding a sympathetic agent to do this.

Your mother MAY be able to buy you a one way ticket from MSP to Chicago and apply the "credit" from the unused portion of her round-trip ticket to the price of a one way ticket.

Neither of those options will save you much (if any) $$.

 

[Tinky]

Matt- I think you may want to check out throughly the option concerning not using the return trip of the ticket. I can't remember exactly (two kids later, less brain cells) but I think there is some quirky airline rule about this. Can't remember the circumstances but a friend of mine was stopped at the gate once because of something like this and had to pay the difference from a round trip to a one way on a old ticket he previously held before he could board. Might want to call the airlines??

 

[WDW2002]

Why not buy the round trip and only go the one way??

 

[jel0511]

What Tinky is explaining is when a person buys TWO round trip tickets, and only uses one way of each tickets. For Example, the round trip is $650, but the cost of two separate round trips is $400, you used to be able to buy the two separate round trips. This usually happens beacause most of the airlines discounted seats require a Saturday night stay, where as, most business travelsrs don't stay on a Saturday night and usually end up paying full fare. What Free4Life11 is proposing is completely legal and allowed. You might not be able to use the other end of the ticket for future travel (since in reality it will only be worth $76 and the change fee is $100), but still cheaper than the one way. Also, Free4Life11, you can't change the name on any airline ticket, they are all written as non-transferrable, even a fully refundable ticket can't be changed. You'd have to return it, get your refund and then re-ticket to the new passenger.

 

[mickey4ver]

Family member drove out to AZ and needed to fly back east. The one way airfare was outrageous, but round trip was like 1/2 of a one way. They purchased the rt ticket, flew home, wrote a letter to airlines explaining that for reasons they only used one portion of the round trip flight....result, airline gave them a voucher for future plane travel for the unused portion of the rt airfare. Don't know if this was an exception to the rule, or that airlines will do this. Still, even if they had to "burn" the return flight portion and eat the cost, it was still cheaper than a one way ticket would have been. Just our experience to share while you are thinking this through.

 

[margaritabnl]

A ticket purchased in one name cannot be transferred to another. That rule is stated on the ticket and/or E-ticket confirmation. In small print of course

Don't even try to use the return ticket for someone else. It's not worth the hassle with the security checks these days. Plus, photo ID has always been requested at check in so...

About the cost of a 1 way -vs- roundtrip ticket....buy the roundtrip ticket and simply throw away the return portion ONLY when your Mom is 100% positive she won't use the return flight. The airlines are very aware this happens and they really can't do anything to prevent it. You are not obligated to tell them you won't use the return portion. What if there were an emegerncy and the person couldn't make the flight? Or they decided to take a train back or something like that. It would be nice to call and cancel the return flight so the seat could be freed up for someone else though.

The situation mickey4ver is talking is NOT COMMON at all with the airlines. How lucky the person was! It sounds to me like something Southwest Airlines would do. I wouldn't count on a voucher from any other airline though.

 

[cigar95]

Buying a round trip and then simply bailing out of the return is known as "throwaway ticketing". As dumb as it may sound, the airlines actually have formal policies that such a practice is not permitted.

Realistically, there's little they can do. But in principle, they could refuse future reservations, cancel frequent flier miles, or go after one's travel agent for the difference.

A fantastic web site for all sorts of airline policies is this:

http://www.onetravel.com/advisor/AR...&Style=1&Modules=Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y|Y&

(Sorry, I'm sure the wrap will mess some folks up, but you can copy and paste. If there are problems with the link for some reason, You can get to it starting from onetravel.com and looking for "rules of the air" on their home page.) I really recommend bookmarking this site.

 

[ducklite]

I've done throwaways many times without incident. I've even done back-to-backs, but you have to be VERY, VERY careful about those. I think they're much more picky about the back-to-backs than the throwaways.

Anne

 

[cigar95]

Originally posted by ducklite
I've done throwaways many times without incident. I've even done back-to-backs, but you have to be VERY, VERY careful about those. I think they're much more picky about the back-to-backs than the throwaways.

Anne

Yup - I would only try back-to-backs if I was using two different airlines. If booked with the right overlap, I think I could legally justify it with a single airline, but I wouldn't want to go through the hassle and have to deal with corporate legal wranglings.

 

[KAMLEM]

What is a back-to-back?

 

[cigar95]

Back-to-back is where you buy two round-trip tickets (typically with a Saturday night stayover on each one) instead of one very expensive round trip that actually costs more than the other two.

Check out my link to onetravel.com a couple of posts up in this thread - you can find a very thorough discussion of back-to-back and other strategies that the airlines try to prevent.

 

[mickey4ver]

With throwaways, how would an airline know for a fact that for some reason you had a legit reason for not using the other portion. It is still money in their pocket and they overbook anyway, so in essense the seat is probably taken.

Just curious, not argumentative at all