Is there a best practice for buying a return ticket that will be used only for inbound or outbound travel?
My brother would like to travel from city A/country A to city B/country B, as you many know sometimes it's cheaper to buy a return ticket instead of a one way one even when you are not planning to return.
Is there a best practice for a similar case? best practice as in problem-free and cost wise.
The options available assuming he wants to be in city B on June:
- Make the booking from country A on June, He misses the return.
- Make the booking from country B (to country A) on May, He misses the first flight but catches the return on June.
The question Is it fair to buy a return ticket I know I will never use just because it's cheaper? has no sufficient answers.
Best Answer
Yes, option #2 generally will not work with a roundtrip ticket from the full-service airline as when you miss any segment all subsequent segments would be canceled automatically in event of no-show. In Europe, it is slowly changing and in Italy airlines were fined for doing this: http://www.internationallawoffice.com/Newsletters/Aviation/Italy/Studio-Legale-Pierallini-e-Associati/No-show-rule-and-round-trip-tickets
So in most cases, you should go with option #1 but instead of roundtrip, it's often cheaper to find an open-jaw with the cheapest throw-away part.
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