Does anyone know if any penalties are charged to your credit card if you don't turn up for your return flight? Looking at online booking, it seems cheaper to book a return flight than a single one. Very tempting.

Don't worry.

Just don't make it a habit with the same airline.

Nothing will happen.

I just did this on a business trip. I was traveling to a conference in ORD and had a round-trip non-refundable ticket. My boss wanted me to change my plans to visit Des Moines on the way back to see a customer. Looked at the prices, and discovered it was cheaper to book a one way on another airline rather than change my original itinerary. So, I simply cancelled the return portion of my trip on the one airline, and then booked a one way on another.

So, this was a perfectly legitimate situation to cancel the return leg of a trip. Nothing happened.

Cancelling a return reservation and not showing up for a reservation are different. Since the airline and route is not mentioned, it is not possible to say if the airline would not charge for the journey taken vs the fare paid.

no need to cancel.....just don't show up.

"no need to cancel.....just don't show up"

Irresponsible advice.

"...it is not possible to say if the airline would not charge for the journey taken vs the fare paid."

Not sure what that means, but 96 times out of 100, unless it's a discount airline with leg-by-leg fare pricing, the one-way fare is more than the round-trip fare. You surely don't mean we should report to an airline that we're not taking the return half of our itinerary so they can charge us more?

100% agree with AAFF.

Do not cancel. Just don't show up. Calling is <b>asking for trouble</b>, and wasting both your time and the agent's.

Airlines already consider no-show in their operations. That's why they overbook.

It's NOT irresponsible to just no show. And it's NOT irresponsible to give this advice.

I agree that this can be done with almost certain impunity. While the airline has the contractual right in such a situation to charge for a one-way fare, they would almost certainly waive that right to maintain good will, or at least to avoid possible adverse publicity. I think I read that the only time such charges were made were when corporate travel offices, or travel agencies, we caught doing this as a routine matter, so the airline was dealing with many instances, rather than just your one. On the other hand, it is certainly possible that an airline would change such a policy, so one cannot be certain.

Certainly this could be the result of legitimate circumstances, such as illness, and I wonder what the response of an airline would be faced with such a legitimate case. I know that when people don't show for their outbound flight, their entire ticket package is declared worthless, but I think in most instances where you have a good reason, the airline will honor your payment toward a repurchase, at current rates, and will even sometimes waive the change fees associated with the fares. Given that policy, my question would be what happens when you miss a return flight under similar circumstances? If they don't hear from you, they will cancel the remainder of the ticket; but I suspect if you call and say you can't make the flight due to illness, injury, or other cause they decide is sufficient, they may very well give you some kind of voucher to use when you can make the flight. The trouble is, if you ask the airline in advance of the initial purchase, they may very well recognize that you are circumventing the terms of the contract, and act to enforce their rights. It would be interesting and informative to hear from some people who have missed return flights in such circumstances, and how the various airlines dealt with them.

So my inclination would be to call the airline a few days before the return flight, and tell them you will not be able to make the connection. I know they often overbook and not calling would not greatly inconvenience them, but I also know that most of us complain about overbooking, and I believe the EU has responded by imposing rather severe penalties on the airlines who have to bounce passengers because of overbooking, and, as with any business, it is the customers who end up paying those penalties in the form of higher prices.

As to whether intentional misrepresentation or concealment is ethical, it certainly seems unethical to me, but I expect that I am in the minority in the US in thinking this, where not taking advantage of others is often viewed as a weakness, rather than a strength. I've never met an unethical person who admitted that they were unethical, and I understand that people who are criminals in prisons will almost always deny that they are criminals.

Interesting questions and theories, but if it was me and unless you are holding a multi-thousand $ ticket, I would just dump the return and not worry about it.

At most you're looking at few $ credit for future flight, at worst, depending on the fare rule, you are looking at possible opening of a door which you may not want to open....

JMHO.