Umm is this illegal or something?

[bab]

I'm sorry if this is dumb OK?

Anyway, we are planning a trip to Houston and I've been telling myself the next time I go there, I want to visit New Orleans. Well, I looked up a flight to New orleans and it is $79 with a connection through Houston. If I book the flight directly to Houston, it's $140 per person. I could save a couple hundred by skipping the trip to NO and just getting off the plane in Houston. LOL is this illegal?

[TrickyBob]

I'm sure people have done it. People miss their flights all the time.

Not sure how legal or ethical it is, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to do.

[sparkythelawyer]

They may cancel the rest of your itinerary if you do not show up for the Houston to New Orleans flight. Sorry.

[ginap]

Jul 19, 2013 11:36:52 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

They may cancel the rest of your itinerary if you do not show up for the Houston to New Orleans flight. Sorry.

Yup. 

[moolarkey]

If you miss a leg of your outbound flight and have return tickets, they will cancel those return flights.

[fuckyourcouch]

Jul 19, 2013 11:36:52 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

They may cancel the rest of your itinerary if you do not show up for the Houston to New Orleans flight. Sorry.

yep, my dad works for an airline and i have tried to scheme a way to do this many times but i get shot down. they are aware of people doing this and your itinerary can easily get jacked up and then you're stranded.

[thatgirl2478]

would you book something different for the return trip? b/c while you could just jump off at houston on the way there, you can't do it on the way back

[sonrisa]

They might not let you get on the return trip half way through.

This is pretty common. When I lived in Costa Rica I wanted to fly to Peru. The United flights from the US stopped to change planes in San Jose, Costa Rica on the way to Lima. Nonetheless, it was cheaper to fly to Miami on one ticket, then get a round trip ticket from Miami to Lima (Costa Rica stop over - three plane flights each way) than just taking the Costa Rica-Peru leg alone. So annoying. 

[kaybee85]

We had a similar situation happen (we were going to Chicago, but flight to WI was cheaper..had a layover in Chicago). We were told our return flight would be cancelled.

[TrickyBob]

Sooo...you could probably do it but you'd have to only buy your tickets there. Then when you get there, the next day or so, buy return tickets. But it might end up costing you more than what you'd save by jumping ship.

[Deleted]

Check to see what a one-way would be back home and don't check bags.

Not illegal at all, but you won't be able to get back home because you would have to depart out of New Orleans.

[snickers]

Are you sure people get off of the plane at the stop over? Sometimes you don't, and that would suck.

[bab]

I was planning on purchasing one way tickets. Maybe I'll do the return on a completely different airline just to play it safe LOL

[donthasslethehoff]

Like I am sure others have said, you'd have to buy two 1-way tickets. Once you miss your departure flight, they automatically cancel your return flights.

This happened to me before flying from Madrid to Munich. We missed our original flight to Munich, managed to get one the next morning super early, but they failed to tell us that our return would be canceled. We showed up to the airport in Munich to return home and they had no record of us. It turned into a huge hassle.

[MrsAxilla]

Jul 19, 2013 11:36:52 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

They may cancel the rest of your itinerary if you do not show up for the Houston to New Orleans flight. Sorry.

Yep.  I did something like that before (I was visiting a friend in CLE and we were going to drive to Pittsburg, but since I had a connection in Pitts, I just got off the plane). they cancelled my flight, but I was able to get reinstated by calling the airline.

[bab]

I was planning on purchasing one way tickets. Maybe I'll do the return on a completely different airline just to play it safe LOL

[lime]

That's called hidden city ticketing.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_booking_ploys

[Captain Serious]

Look into booking the itinerary from home to Houston, to NO, back to home. It may save you some money, but if you are flying Continental, you'll likely have to return through Houston anyway, since that's their hub.

[cheeseandcrackers]

Jul 19, 2013 11:36:52 GMT -5 sparkythelawyer said:

They may cancel the rest of your itinerary if you do not show up for the Houston to New Orleans flight. Sorry.

this

[bab]

Jul 19, 2013 13:09:53 GMT -5 @theycalledherkate said:

Awwww are you coming to visit me?! just kidding!

I would love to visit you!!! 

It might be tough on this trip though because we are cramming tons of visits with relatives into a short trip