Intentionally missing last leg of trip?
 

Hi,
I am flying from St. Thomas to Philadelphia then on to Boston at the end of a vacation I am taking later this month. Since booking the ticket, my husband and I decided we actually wanted to visit friends in Philadelphia at the end of our vacation and tried to reschedule the last leg of our flight until two days later. Unsurprisingly it took 25 minutes on the phone to find out that it would cost $900 each to change the itinerary.

My question: Can we get away with just getting off the plane in Philly and never using the last part of our ticket? It is less than $100 each to just buy separate tickets back to Boston a couple of days later. Will the airline charge some sort of fee to our credit card?

The other issue is luggage - I don't think it's possible to have just carry-on, so presumably we will have to level with them and just check our bags to Philly.

What do you think they'll say? I thought I'd try asking around here, and not spend another 25 minutes on the phone. The Carribbean board has been so helpful in planning this trip.

Thanks!!

My best advice is get new tickets to Philadlephia and back at the $200 each price, if available and save the hassle. The get bags in Philadelphia idea will not please the airline. They may charge for the "new itinerary" if you get off and skip the connection. If they do, it will be annoying at best to try to get the money back.

Think of the Philadelphia stopover like going to a nice meal that was not planned for the trip or another mini-trip, it will cost something.

The airlines are aware that people want to "fly their own way". I don't expect them to make it easy.

If you are set on doing this, is it possible to ship the bags home (Fed-Ex or whatever)?

If spending 25 min on the phone is a hassle, try it when they say you owe them $700 each and have already charged your card or calling the credit card to deny the charge, or writing letters to do it and on and on.

Not worth the hassle, I think. By the way the request to change might have been noted in your reservation - don't even try to say you didn't know if things become a mess - it will not help.

The luggage is the issue - it will go to Boston.

At many airports, the luggage claim area is unguarded. You can investigate if that's true at USAirways' terminal. Then have someone pick up the bags for you.

But of course, if something happens to the bags (like not showing up), and you're not there in Boston to deal with it, you may have a problem.

You really _can_ do this trip with carry on.

Keith

The way the system is set up your luggage tags are printed as a function of your itinerary at check in, so there just isn't a way to check your bags only to PHL when checking in for your Boston leg without tipping your hand. You could try to sweet talk the counter agent but be prepared to get hit with change fees. You might try not checking the bag at the lobby counter but taking it with you to the gate and gate checking it there. In such situations the agent usually hand writes a bag tag and asks "what is your final destination?" to which you could simply reply "Philadelphia." Of course, best of all would be to just have a carry-on.

A thought - Would it be practical to ship the luggage that you can't carry, from ST to your Philly friends, or home, at the end of your vacation? ((*))

The luggage is the big issue, but it's not the only one. What you are doing is technically against the airline's contract of carriage. If they find out that you do it, you will find a big fat charge on your credit card for the cost of the changed itinerary. Usually, you won't get caught doing this, but they are getting better at catching this type of thing, so just be prepared for the off chance.

as posted by <b>bhsnyder</b>

<i>If they find out that you do it, you will find a big fat charge on your credit card for the cost of the changed itinerary</i>,

technically you are correct and it is possible, but the above statement is totally incorrect.

I wish anybody that ever makes a statement like the one above would actually have proof of this happening.

IT DOES NOT HAPPEN! PERIOD! Not to an individual doing it once or twice.

Airlines have been known to go after corporate travel agents that do this on a regular basis with 100's of tickets or any travel agency that plays this game, but unless an individual does this on a regular basis, there will NOT be any consequences if the traveler happens to miss the final leg during one trip.

It's an urban legend. That's all it is.

What if I paid cash for the ticket? Will the airline SWAT team burst into my house early one morning to collect the difference?

Last year while arriving in S.F. from Puerto Vallarta ( we flew out of Monterey, Ca.) they changed our flight time so we would have had a 4 hour wait in S.F then hop on the plane for a 20 min. plane ride when it takes 2 hours to drive home from S.f. Luckily, being International we did pick up our bags in the terminal so there was no problem on the suitcase issue. My husband came picked us us. When my sister told United we would NOT be on the last leg of the flight they tried to tell us we would be charged!!!
At that point she walked away and we just left. No extra charges on our credit card.

i fly rtw tickets all the time. often igrnore the last ticket and just don't fly it. i've done this over 10 times. never been charged.

the bag will be the kicker though.

OP is ticketed from 'a' to 'b' via 'c'. Totally different from RTW tickets where you are effectively ticketed 'a' to 'b' &amp; then 'b' to 'c'

AAFrequentFlyer says:
I wish anybody that ever makes a statement like the one above would actually have proof of this happening.

Well, I've seen it firsthand as a former airline employee, so it's not urban legend. And I'm not quite sure why you're so hostile about this.

The reality is that if you do this, it is against the rules and they can come after you if they'd like to try. I agree completely that if you're just a regular traveler, it's unlikely that they will get you for it, because it's not worth their time. But it's technically possible and it has happened, though very very rarely.

I don't know what would happen if you paid with cash, but I assume they'd first try to contact you and second turn it over to a collection agency. My guess in reality though is that it would be such a hassle that they would just let it go unless they thought it wasn't an isolated incident.

That was exactly the point I was trying to made. Your earlier post pretty much made it sound like it will happen. It will not.

This is all so simple. The bottom line is just ship your luggage home UPS, take what you need as carry on, and get off the plane in Philadelphia. Trust me. There is NO problem doing this.

Just to satisfy the naysayers for a minute, let's pretend the SWAT team does come after you and invades your house to arrest you in the middle of the night a week later. (Yea, right.) Simple tell them that one of you got terribly sick and you missed making your connection. Let them try to prove otherwise. Do you suppose anyone has ever really missed a connection before? OK? End of problem.

I have done something similar several times with no problem EXCEPT I always had carry-on luggage only. Pack less and it should work for you.