Ridiculous Air Itinerary--Hard to Believe but True
 

I was inspired by another post about low airfares, and wanted to share a ridiculous itinerary with all of you--this is really true. Last year I was looking for a flight from NY to Bermuda, and and American Airlines, on their web site, came up with this brilliant flight plan--from NY LaGuardia to Boston, then (after about 2 hours between flights) to NY JFK, then to Bermuda.
Now, for all of you who don't travel to NY or are not from NY, LaGuardia and JFK are about 15 minutes from each other. Did AA really think anyone was going to start at LaGuardia, only to then get back to Kenneday 3 hours later then fly to Bermuda.
Have any of you seen any other strange itineraries offered?

Well that beats mine, but a few years ago while discussing (LIVE) with American Airlines a FF freebie to Europe, this gal mentioned that AA now offered direct flights from Milan to Miami. That sounded great and she booked us on this "direct flight" with a single flight number. It wasn't until I started thinking about the times and how long the flight must be that I called back to discover that this "direct" flight actually went from Milan to Chicago where there was a two or three hour layover, then continued -- on another plane even -- to Miami!! She had never mentioned a "stopover" or Chicago. Talk about a non direct "direct" flight. We changed the flight.

A "direct" flight doesn't mean it's a "non-stop". Direct refers to a stop but has no change of plane.

That's what I thought, but this "direct" flight actually also required a change of plane in Chicago -- including clearing customs there and reloading into another place.

Incidentally American informed me at that time that "direct" can even mean changing airlines. These joint fares can be called a "direct" flight where you start on American and switch to a partner airline. Makes no sense to me, but that's what they told me.

I think you got me beat as well, but here are my two latest offerings.

While looking into flights from So Calif to the Bay area, I came across these two "gems":

America West, for only around $500, would fly me from Ontario, CA, to Phoenix, then (after 2 hours) hop me over to Las Vegas, and (after another hour and a half or so) jet me up to Oakland.

Alaska Airlines cracked me up. For only $867.50 (my entire trip for two, including airfare and hotel is about half of this), Alaska would fly me from Ontario, CA to LAX, where I would stay roughly 1 hour. Then they would fly me up to Seattle (I mean, are we overshooting our target or what?!?), where I would have another 1 - 2 hour layover. Then they would fly me south - probably along the same flight pattern they took to get me to Seattle - and land in Oakland. Maybe I should have found out what the cost of a parachute was and if they would allow me to just drop off over Oakland on the way up to Seattle?

Yes, I understand about hubs and all that, but I thought both of these itineraries were a bit ridiculous!

I flew from Panama to Atlanta and needed a flight to Lexington, KY. The flight was full so they were going to fly me to Birmingham, AL, then Cincinnati, then Lexington. When I got to Birmingham, the flight to Cincinnati was cancelled due to snow so they flew me back to Atlanta (with the same flight crew I had just arrived with) and then somehow got me on the flight to Lexington that was originally full.

A crazy Expedia routing actually worked to our advantage once. We booked a flight to Orlando from Boston via CHICAGO. Made the trip 2x as long as it should have been but it did save us $600. So here's the good thing... a snow storm socked in the entire East Coast south of Boston. Many many flights canceled including all that were headed for Orlando. But our west bound Chicago flight got out without a delay and we made it to the House of the Mouse without a hitch. All my kids classmates were delayed by two days or more on their February vacations. We looked like geniuses when in fact we were just cheap. ;-)

This was a bit of a ridiculous route, but it was the only thing I could get when I had to return to the US on short notice after the death of my grandmother.

St. Maarten to Raleigh to Dallas to Houston. It was a roundabout way of getting there, but I was glad that I could make it.

A couple years ago, I needed to get from Chicago to Cleveland. Everything to Cleveland was booked, but I found a reasonable fare on USAir airlines. I recall the itinerary was Chicago to Pittsburgh for a flight change then back to Cleveland. The Chicago to Pittsburgh flight however, had a stopover in, yep - Cleveland!
A more recent flight experience had me flying from Cleveland to Chicago to catch a connecting flight to Manchester, NH - SWA.

Ages ago - 18 years or so - United was running a campaign emphasizing the number of flights available to the East Coast from San Francisco and Oakland. Well, I was on a flight that went to New York from San Francisco AND Oakland. I got on at SFO and, so help me, 15 minutes later, this big DC-10 lands in Oakland before heading to JFK! It was foggy that morning, and I remember worrying that we would hit the towers of the Bay Bridge on the way over San Francisco Bay, because we sure as hell never really got to "cruising altitude"!