
Flight Search Engines And The Multi-City Ripoff - peter123
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130329/02525322508/flight-search-engines-multi-city-ripoff.shtml
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ecspike
One of the things that immediately jump out to me is that the first set of
trips are on all different carriers. Besides that, none of them are partners
in any shape or form so while an airline can book almost any flight you want
from any other legacy carrier on their own ticket stock, you will be paying
the full coach fare.

Booking those segments separately means that you aren't just taking what the
other airlines report as the fare but it is looking for the lowest possible
fare on each airline, issuing a ticket on their own ticket stock. For example,
American and United aren't partners so I can book an United leg on an American
ticket but even if there are supercheap fares available, it's going to give me
a relatively high fare for the "foreign" leg.

In general, what Adam Goldstein said about the downsides of buying a bunch of
one-way tickets is correct but the baggage issue depends on the carrier. Most
of the big carriers have interline baggage agreements with the other majors
eliminating the need to retrieve baggage and recheck it. So if I have a Delta
flight and a United flight on separate tickets, I can tell the Delta agent at
check-in to check my bags through to United. You would do that by showing them
an itinerary or proof of a ticket. Low cost carriers like Southwest, Spirit,
Frontier, and Ryan Air generally don't have interline baggage agreements with
anyone.

Where this breaks down is if you have irregular operations on one of your
flights. If the inbound is late and you just make the connecting flight, your
bags probably won't. You'll also get the run around if your baggage gets
damaged. Generally I'd build in a 2 hr buffer if I'm changing airlines.

Disclaimer: I used to work in reservations at Delta Air Lines.

