Problem with missed flight connections?
 

I live between two TX cities with an airport. If I take a direct flight from city A (bigger airport of the two) to London, it's $386 MORE than taking a connecting flight from city B to city A and then the same direct flight to London. I booked the flight from city B to save $. Now I would rather skip the connecting flights (even tho it's a closer commute and a smaller airport) because it's sceduled for 9:15 AM departure/10:15 landing in city A, while the direct flight from city A is not until 6:30 PM. No other connecting flight available from city B.

Also, the return connecting flight is only 1 hr. 40 min. after we land from London to city A. We hope to not have any checked baggage, but still - would this be enought time to change planes in a big airport?

I guess what I'm getting at is: would there be any kind of problem (all flights with the same airline) with "missing" the connecting flights and just taking the direct flights from city A?

If not, should I contact the airlines to tell them I will miss the connecting flights?

Hope this all made sense - we are not frequent flyers and don't know flight protocol.

If you do not show up for that first segment they will cancel your entire trip. You can phone in advance to see if they will do you any favors but don't count on it.

You can pay a change fee (which may be more than the amount you are 'saving') plus the fare difference from city A. Otherwise you'll be SOL because as lauri_ann says if you skip your first leg everything else will be canceled.

just take your original flights . . .

Original flights it is! Thanks so much for this information, it might have saved us from a canceled trip.

You also need to look at that return connection - if for any reason you do miss it, is there a later flight back to city B?
I ask because I run into this exact issue when booking my mom out of Waco through Dallas - if I book her on the last flight back to Waco and she misses it, she's got to either talk someone in to driving to get her, or spend the night in DFW waiting for the next am flight.

Thanx txgirlinbda - Yes, there are 2 more later flights, but would get us back to city B very late (and then we have a 1 1/2 hr. drive home). Hope not to have any checked baggage, so this might help.

You will have to collect all your luggage at the first port of entry into US to clear customs so no need to worry about checking in any luggage on your return. After customs you can just walk out and go home.

You can just skip the last flight. No repercussions, but as already stated, do not skip the first flight.

Wish we could AAFrequentFlyer, but can't just skip the last connection because our car will be at the city B airport. No way home from City A.