Comments on: What’s a “back-to-back” airline ticket?

By: David

David — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:14:43 +0000

There are lots of different “cheap and dirty tricks’ to get around the airlines’ arcane airfare restrictions. Visit http://AirFareIQ.com to learn lots of different money-saving tricks.

By the way, isn’t it interesting that Southwest Airlines has publicly stated they have NO PROBLEM with back-to-back and ‘hidden city” tickets?

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Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:25:04 +0000

[...] What’s a “back-to-back” airline ticket? [...]

By: Barry Graham

Barry Graham — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:08:33 +0000

Just because an airline forces you to accept its terms and conditions because you have a choice, it doesn’t make their rules part of the law. If back to back tickets are illegal or unethical, then what about airlines advertizing award tickets or even paid tickets that cost hundreds of dollars more than advertized by the time you have added the fees?

What about airlines that don’t provide special meals in first class even when they are providing meals for everyone else?

I believe it’s perfectly OK to do what Chris says and I would gladly have an airline take me to court so that I can expose their own dirty tricks in the process – although I have to say I haven’t actually done a back to back ticket for many years and my company certainly doesn’t allow it.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:49:02 +0000

I actually did something like my scenario, but it was mostly to avoid a change fee.I had book a long trip on one airline, then had to return home during the trip to take care of some business. It was considerably cheaper to buy a new ticket on a different airline (non-partner, non-codeshare) than to pay the change fee plus the difference in fare. I don’t make a habit out of this kind of thing.

By: Sister 7

Sister 7 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:29:13 +0000

…do the airlines know a travel writer has exposed a dirty trick? I wonder if Chris Elliott could be sued for his ‘how to rip off the airline’ video.

I’ve also heard of airlines confiscating your mileage if they find out you are doing back to back’s. Delta has sophisticated software that tracks passengers..using or w/o using ffy accounts.

I would not mess with the airlines.They are bigger and more powerful than we are.

By: Frank W

Frank W — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:00:18 +0000

When dealing with airlines, there is no “ethical and/or legal”. There are only the airline rules (unfair, unethical, and normally illegal as they normally are) and if you don’t like it – that’s just too bad.

By: John M

John M — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:41:19 +0000

As for the legality of back to back tickets, it depends on who you ask and what you define as legal and illegal. When you purchase your ticket you are giving your consent to abide by the Contract of Carriage, which for most airlines prohibits passengers doing back to back tickets or ticketing to a point beyond. If they catch you and they do catch people, not only can they cancel out your current trip, but they can bill you for the difference and cancel out your frequent flyer membership and not permit you to get a new one.

I recall reading about a business woman in FL. who was caught by Delta and as I recall she had pretty decent status on them. They took her to court and sued for something like $190k in fare difference, canceled all of her miles and banned her from their frequent flyer program for life. I’m pretty sure that this was settled out of court but I don’t know for certain.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:33:19 +0000

Doing this is ethical and legal. After using coupon 1 of ticket 1 you are certainly free to fly roundtrip to any destination in the world. After returning, using coupons 1 and 2 (in order) of ticket 2 you use coupon 2 of ticket 1 to return home.

If I bought a roundtrip ticket on US to fly PHL-DUB certainly it is ethical to buy a DUB-LGW roundtrip ticket while there, isn’t it? What then is any less ethical about buying and using a DUB-PHL roundtrip while there?

In both cases I have bought two tickets and lived up to all conditions of carriage of each ticket.

By: Kevin M

Kevin M — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:25:10 +0000

If you REALLY want to make the airlines mad, combine hidden city with back-to-back. :) Sometimes, two round trips to a distant, highly competitive city is cheaper than one round-trip where there’s no competition.

For example: in Baton Rouge, I can fly Delta (essentially all flights go to/stop in Atlanta), American (Dallas), Continental (Houston), or Northwest (Memphis). That may change up a bit with the DL-NW merger, but the principle is there. A city like Washington DC or New York, which I can get to via any of the four, might cost less than half a round trip to any of these four cities. The hidden city tactic gets me to the city I really want to go to (say, Atlanta), and back-to-back ticketing with a Saturday stay can make it really cheap.

By: Carver

Carver — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:02:44 +0000

@Regina

Sort of. With hidden city ticketing, once you miss a leg of your trip, the remaining tickets generally cancels. So hidden city tickets work for either one way trips or on the inbound portion on a round trip ticket. It doesn’t work on the outbound portion of a ticket