ozrick33

My wife and I need to fly from Rome to Frankfurt to get our flight back to Sydney. the cost of one way fares is extreme and the return ticket is 75% cheaper. Crazy. Can we book e return flight and then just get on the plane back to Sydney with issues? We are flying out of Frankfurt on Qantas and were thinking of flying into Frankfurt on Lufthansa. Can we do this? I would hate to think that they will charge our credit card a huge fee once we tell them we are cancelling the return leg.

Cowboy1968

You should have no reason to worry.

The cases which caused problems were those when you did not use the first half of your return ticket, but wanted to use the return leg. Or so called cross border selling when you would get two sets of return tickets for dates a week apart to avoid the high rates of same day returns.
But even in the latter cases, there has been recent court decision in end of 2007 that the airline cannot deny boarding or impose any fees or penalties for partial use of their tickets.
No need to call Lufthansa to cancel the return leg once you get to Frankfurt.

Another option is to fly Airberlin.com but they don't have any non-stop connections.

Dave

Cowboy1968 writes:
"The cases which caused problems were those when you did not use the first half of your return ticket, but wanted to use the return leg".
This would be a problem, but not for the reasons you think. If you do NOT fly your outbound segment, all other segments cancel and there is NO return flight to take. ;-)

Also:
"so called cross border selling when you would get two sets of return tickets for dates a week apart".

This is otherwise known as "nested ticketing" and can in fact cause problems.

Best, Dave

Cowboy1968

Exactly.
Lufthansa started a few years ago (like most other airlines) to cancel return/inbound segments if you did not use the outbound segment. This policy has now been ruled illegal.
But it only applies to tickets bought from airlines under German jurisdiction (or which sell tickets through German subsidiaries) and has not an EU wide impact.

Seamus

ozrick33 - short answer is "no worry". Just purchase the cheaper RT and do NOT call the airline to tell them you are canceling the return portion - just don't show up.
If you were to do this frequently on the same airline there is a theoretical risk that it could be caught, but in your situation I would not give it a second thought. Remember when you check in, though, that if the agent asks you "what is your final destination" say Frankfurt!

One thing to keep in mind is that since these will be separate tickets you probably will not be able to check your bag through to Sydney but will have to claim it in Frankfurt from Lufthansa then check it in with Qantas - be sure you have enough time to meet check in requirements.

ozrick33

Thank you so much for your help everyone. We will certainly book the RT ticket and save some real dollars. I guess it is a case of using this strange system to our advantage.