Airline "No Show" Policies

[casenmgreen]

We have a flight booked from a northern city in the UK, to London, to the west coast of the USA.

The first hop is to get from a small northern airport down to Heathrow, in London, a huge airport - but it turns out we'll be in London on that day.

So, we want to board our flight at Heathrow.

It turns out British Airways, and from what I can Google this is pretty common across airlines, cancels all flights, including return tickets, if any flight in the chain is missed.

This means we have to travel from London, north, about three hours, to catch a flight which will take us back to London.

Something to be aware of when booking tickets, or using airlines.

There's a decent article here, covering the subject;

https://www.itv.com/news/2018-12-10/airline-no-show-policies-explained

As of 2018, when the article was written;

"According to Which? the clauses are included in the terms and conditions of British Airways, Emirates, Flybe, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, Air France, Swiss, Qatar and Singapore Airlines."

[jfengel]

Yep, this has been a thing for a while. Airlines use a variety of complicated ways to price their tickets, leading to situations where you can get a cheaper ticket by booking a longer flight and skipping part of it. Wikipedia has an article about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_booking_ploys

If you really are going to miss a short-haul flight to a major airport like that, there's a good chance that they'll change your ticket for you. They might charge a fee. In the worst case, they might upcharge you -- for example, if the flight directly from Heathrow really was more expensive than the fight with the extra hop.

Call up the airline and talk to an actual person. Which may require some time on the phone, unfortunately.

[casenmgreen → jfengel]

Changing the ticket is treated as a new ticket, which you pay for in full minus the price you've paid for the existing ticket. This meant 400 GBP per person to not take the first hop.

[asimpleusecase]

Ran into this, this year. I was flying from Dublin to Charlotte to another city. I only had a short layover in Charlotte. Then a few days after I booked the flight I needed to make a business meeting in Charlotte. So I called the airlines and asked to get a 48 hour layover in Charlotte. Nope. Could I modify my ticket - Humm… yeah but it would cost £1000 to make the 48 hour stopover.So I flew Dublin, Charlotte, third city - stayed 12 hours and flew back to Charlotte for my meeting and then back to 3rd city. When it was time try return to Dublin I could not check in on my phone. When I got to the airport I was told my international flight had been canceled due to flying out of order. I produced all my receipts and proved I had not flown out of order. It was a nightmare. But I did get home.

[casenmgreen → asimpleusecase]

I look these days to minimize airline use.

In part because the boarding process is long and stressful, and in part because airlines are often unpleasant in their conduct.

Trains are much, much nicer. Slower, of course, but zero hassle boarding, and I like train rides.

I'm thinking to explore sailing for longer distance travel.

[fossuser]

This is often called skip-lagging and it can get you banned from an airline and/or have your status revoked.

[thesuperbigfrog]

Call the airline and get the tickets updated for your adjusted travel plan--namely to start at Heathrow.

[casenmgreen → thesuperbigfrog]

It's treated as a new ticket, where you pay the difference.

A week has passed since we booked, so using this method would cost us 800 GBP not to take the first flight in the chain.