Hello Fodorites,

I can buy a round-trip ticket from Munich to Zurich for $120, but a one-way ticket is about four times the price.

My question: Will I be put on some do-not-fly list in Europe if I puchase a round-trip ticket and throw away the return tickets?

No, for the simple reason that there is absolutely no way any airline can prove that you missed that flight "on purpose" and why would they bother? They got your money and they can use that seat you didn't show up for and possibly make even more money on it.

I do it all the time. Never had a problem.

laartista,

Is this something you do all the time in Europe?

I know it sounds silly, but I had heard of someone who purchased a ticket and didn't use one of the legs of a multiple trip flight and they canceled the rest of his itinerary and charged his credit card for the difference in cost. (It does sound like an urban legend now that I'm typing this out.)

You don't want to do it "all the time" on the same airline, when you give them your FF number.

But if you do it occasionally, not a problem.

Or don't give out your FF number. MUC-ZRH earns you very little anyways.

Just did it on this past trip. I do it on every trip cuz I wait until the last minute and the the flights are expensive. So yeah, not for multiple legs but for rt's all the time.

Yes, they will cancel the rest of your itinerary if it is on the same ticket. So if the one-way portion takes you home, you don't care; but if it drops you somewhere else, you should have an alternate way of getting back. Note that this only applies PER TICKET; if your onward journey is on a different airline or a different mode, they won't care. You won't be put on a list.

The unpleasantest way to discover this is if you miss a leg of your flight due to weather and the airline cancels the rest of your flights, even after you rebook for the very next day on the same airline. Qantas did this to us once; our flight from LA to Sydney was cancelled because the plane couldn't get off the ground in New York (3,000 miles from us); and though Qantas got us on the next flight to Sydney the next day, our baggage was not so lucky, and all the rest of our internal Aussie flights and our return were cancelled.

It only works on the last leg(s) of an itinerary. Missing something in the middle will cancel the rest. I think for Bird, it sounds like not using only the last leg.

Hardly a month passes by without this question coming up....

1. Understand it is a violation of the tariff of the airline which essentially is a contract between you and the airline...they agree to provide transportation as specified on the ticket and you agree to abide by the tariff rules. Therefore

2. Technically if you do not show for the return part of a round trip they have the right to debit your credit card for the amount of the one way fare.

Now there are the practical questions...what are your chances of getting caught at this game.

3. Answer little or none. Back in the prehistoric era of ticketing by travel agents (you remember that long ago era, don't you?) travel agents were threatened all the time the airlines would issue a debit notice for such action as this along with using hidden cities to constri
uct more advantageous fares and some of the travel agents magazines showed a couple of cases where they actually issued debit notices and put the blame on the travel agents.

No more...most of the ticketing is now done thruogh the internet and basically the airlines have take the attitude they have bigger fish to fry in this day and age.

Therefore though you should be aware that yes it is possible to get caught and be debited to your credit card (no more travel agents to debit) it rarely happens.

Hi Bird,

Do it.

If you want to be nice about it, call the airline the day of the flight and tell them that you're in the hospital, won't make the flight and don't know when you will get out.

There is no reason to lie to the airline; if you want to call them simply say you are unable to take the trip. They are NOT going to ask you why because as I said earlier:

they already HAVE your money

they can sell your seat to someone else

it would be more hassle (for them) than it is worth to pursue this.

Make sure the leg you don't use is not scheduled to occur BEFORE the leg you DO want to use.

Thank you for flying GermanWings. We hope for your speedy recovery. What hospital shall we send the bill to?

Do not call airline. I have not heard of one case of an airline penalizing a passenger for not showing up unless it's a frequent and repeat "offender".

I have done it at least 4 times with Spanair, Iberia and Icelandair. I don't mind paying higher for a one-way , but when they price it 4 and 5 times the price of a R/T , I feel that they deserve whatever shenanigans people do.

Note to self: always look at r/t fares, even if traveling one way. (I can't remember the last time I bought a o/w ticket, but who know what the future will bring?)

I unfortunately had to do something similar back in August right after all the 'stuff' happened in London. My original plans of staying on and traveling with my sister were cancelled so I ended up having to buy another r/t ticket from frankfurt to Iad and the cheapest my husband and I found (in 1 day) was on usair with my husband flying on united.

The only issue I ran into was in Frankfurt when I checked in they quizzed me pretty heavily when they found out that I did not live in Germany and that I would not be returning to Germany but instead staying the in US. Talk about feeling like a thief! The did give me a special sticker but nothing came of it. I'm not sure whether or not I was flagged in any way.

I did find out that in order to use the other half of my r/t ... I had 1 year to use it and it had to be to back to Frankfurt. I couldn't use it for any other travel. The ticket was bought on travelocity.

BTW it also works very nicely thank you on eurostar...buy a midweek return and your fare becomes about 1/5 of what you would pay for a one way. (this is done so often that I wonder if there is every anybody on the last couple of trains out of Paris or London (there is some talk they're going to try to do something about it but it is very difficult, especially on a train to prove somebody did not travel)....

"...I wonder if there is ever anybody on the last couple of trains out of Paris or London..."

Sure there are. They're the people on their way to London or Paris on half of a round trip.

>>Technically if you do not show for the return part of a round trip they have the right to debit your credit card for the amount of the one way fare.<<

I'm not convinced - the rule of thumb is that if you breach a contract the other party is entitled to damages which put them in the position they would have been in had the contract been performed. ISTM that failing to show for a return flight isn't actually causing any loss to the airline - if anything they make a minute profit on the fuel saved - so I don't see how they could justify such damages.

(Being blacklisted from booking for doing this repeatedly is however a whole other matter - airlines are under no obligation to contract with a particular individual).

It has nothing to do with whether it makes sense or not....when you buy an airline ticket, you may not look at it that way, but there are a whole slew of conditions listed which are the tariff rules...somewhere in there you agree that if you violate the tariff rules, they can chage you the appropriate one way fare.

Now I'm not trying to scare anybody...I do it from time to time on Eurostar as noted above and they haven't caught on (keep my fingers crossed) yet.