BA 2 leg flight, can I just do the second?

dseventy

Hi all

Without getting into too much detail.

I want to fly from London to Las Vegas.

If I book from another UK city airport on the first leg that lands in Heathrow, then onto LAs Vegas, its often cheaper!

So lets say I booked Glasgow->LHR->LAS , but missed the Glasgow->LHR trip, would the rest be cancelled?

How on earth it can be cheaper to travel further is beyond me!

D70

DTDfanBoy

If you don't show for the first leg the whole ticket will be cancelled.

whatmichaelsays

dseventy wrote: »

Hi all

Without getting into too much detail.

I want to fly from London to Las Vegas.

If I book from another UK city airport on the first leg that lands in Heathrow, then onto LAs Vegas, its often cheaper!

So lets say I booked Glasgow->LHR->LAS , but missed the Glasgow->LHR trip, would the rest be cancelled?

How on earth it can be cheaper to travel further is beyond me!

D70

To answer your first question, yes, they would cancel the whole flight if you didn't show up at Glasgow.

As for the second question, there is potentially lots of reasons but the most likely is competition. Many airlines loss-lead on 'connecting' legs.

There isn't that much competition on London to Las Vegas direct flights (only BA and Virgin IIRC). However, there is lots of competition on connecting routes. For example, Glasgow to Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin, etc and then on to the US.

Someone from London is likely to book on a direct flight, where the competition is limited. Someone flying from a regional airport is more than likely going to have to connect at some point, whether that is in Amsterdam, Dublin, Paris, New York, Philadelphia or anywhere else. Airlines will then try to loss-lead on the connecting flight to get you on the more profitable long-haul flight.

Caz3121

there is currently a BA Business class sale on if you want to treat yourself but the flights start in Dublin
in the example of 20th-30th July (random dates)
the flights from LHR-LAS return are £1,149 in economy but if you take a little hop over to Dublin (if you have any Avios etc it would cost you 4,500 miles and £17.50) you can get DUB-LAS return for £1,100 in Business Class....you cannot miss the first leg and may seem a bit of a faff going to Dublin just to come back again but worth it for flat bed in my view

alanrowell

From Glasgow to Las Vegas there are several routes with one connection, so the price is set to make you choose their flight rather than someone else's.

For direct flights there is less competition so less need to cut price.

richardw

Glasgow-Las is a different market to London-Las.
Moneysavers win on this principle on long routes such as Lon-Sydney, if the 'add on' assumption applied, many just wouldn't fly.

mad_rich

Hmm.

I live in Newcastle, and I've *never* seen NCL-LHR-XXX come in cheaper than LHR-XXX. (On other carriers, via other hubs, yes, but never on BA.) Maybe we're all mugs here!

But yes. To answer the OP, you *must* take the first segment. You can skip a final segment, sort of, sometimes (once or twice is OK, more than that and they might come after you for the additional revenue). But you will have to do it with hand-luggage only, or connive a way to persuade the check-in agent not to tag your bag all the way to DUB.

jpsartre

mad_rich wrote: »

Hmm.

I live in Newcastle, and I've *never* seen NCL-LHR-XXX come in cheaper than LHR-XXX. (On other carriers, via other hubs, yes, but never on BA.) Maybe we're all mugs here!

It happens quite a bit on longhaul routes. Just checked random dates to DFW and it was about £25 less to fly NCL-LHR-DFW than LHR-DFW direct.

budgetflyer

You also get an extra 500 Avios and 10TP EW if flying BA