Open jaw bookings, what about delays on different legs of the ticket?

If your itinerary is on one ticket, you should be protected. In my experience, it would be unusual to have an overnight gap between one leg and the next, but if United sells the ticket then it should be OK. The term protection may still result in a lengthy delay if, for example, you miss the last flight of the day.

It is my experience and understanding that if you buy everything on one ticket, from the same airline or its codeshare partners, then you are protected. There could be an issue if YOU miss a leg of the flight because of your own doing (you can't decide to skip leg 3 and then get on the plane at leg 4, you can't oversleep and miss a segment accidentally). However, if you are on the plane (or checked in waiting at the airport for it) and it is delayed so you miss the next, you are protected. You get off the plane when it lands and go to the desk or call the airline, they will get you to the destination.

By 4 legs do you mean something like:
-Home to Layover Airport (1)
-Layover Airport to Destination A (2)

Visit whatever destinations you desire

-Destination B to Layover Airport (3)
-Layover airport to Home (4)

If so then I believe delays/cancellations are protected.

Thanks, Everyone. Not only is United selling the ticket but I created this convoluted route at an unbelievable price! It had me wondering what the catch might be. It hadn't ever occurred to me that I could have a problem if there were issues from one leg which impacted the next, but a poster on an old thread about open-jaw flights told a story about having to buy a new final leg of a journey when the previous leg of her open-jaw flight was significantly delayed. I was hoping that she was incorrectly referring to a separate booking as open-jaw, which would make sense why she would have been left totally out of luck. Haven't pulled the trigger on my purchase yet, I guess just looking out for potential pitfalls!

Mira, yes- what you listed is exactly what I'm looking at. I'm going from my home (Honolulu) to London, but wanted to essentially "force a stop" through Denver where my sister will be joining me for the trip--her home town. My options would not come up with Denver as a normal layover point on a HNL-LHR ticket, certainly not for any reasonable price. We will have 2+ weeks in Europe and will be flying home together from Prague to Denver on leg 3, with a connection in Munich. I will then stay overnight in Denver, and catch my 4th leg home to HNL the following morning. Crazy enough, I can do all of this for cheaper than going HNL-anywhere in Europe! So I'm not sure if I'm some sort of accidental genius or missing a critical problem. (My life experience has me inclined towards the latter...)

You're probably an "accidental genius." For reasons known only to the airlines, different routings can have wildly different prices. As you said, going through Denver is not a normal route from Honolulu to London; it's probably for precisely this reason that it's cheap. Or not. Whatever the reason, as long as it's all booked on one ticket on United, you're set.

Just as airfares can be shockingly high, sometimes they are shockingly low. All you can do is grab it while it's still available. Even if it's due to an actual glitch on the airline's part, they honor it if you booked through them. See, for instance, this story about people who got Cathay Pacific business class for the price of coach - roughly a 95% saving!

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/cathay-pacific-ticket-mistake/index.html

How exactly did you “force” the layover in Denver in both directions? Did you use the multi-city form to book four legs on the same form? Like this:

Day 1 HNL to Denver

Day 2 Denver to London

Day 14 (end of trip) Prague to Denver, with a plane change in Munich

Day 15 Denver to Honolulu

If so, while it is booked all at the same time for pricing and ticketing, I don’t know if that counts as “all on one ticket” for purposes of protection. That concept applies to flights in one direction wth a connection on the way, like your Prague to Munich to Denver flight. If you or flight from Prague to Munich arrives too late to make the connection to the flight to Denver, you are protected and they are obligated to get you on the next available flight to Denver.

However, I really don’t know if you are protected if your Honolulu flight to Denver is canceled or so late that you miss the flight to London. They are really separate flights, just like the inbound and outbound flights on a roundtrip ticket. Hopefully someone knows the definite answer. But in any case, there is very little risk even if protection does not apply, as you have built in an overnight in Denver in each direction.

The example of when you're NOT protected...

You fly from A to B. Stay in B for a couple of nights then train/drive to C where you fly from C to D. If you're late getting to C (which is on your own) and you miss the flight from C to D then it's your fault and not the airlines.

We bought some ridiculously great airfare on United for travel in June 2019. Maybe United is just trying to lure in the customers.

Regarding the Honolulu to London flight with a stop in Denver. If the connection was offered on the airline website then it is one ticket. Many airlines will offer numerous connections.

But realize you bought a Honolulu to London ticket. The airline can change your flights with a different connection airport as long as it departs and arrives around the same time.

In regard to overnight connections, these are okay as well as long as it is an option on the airline's website. Any accomodations desired between flights is not included.

It's only one data point, but a strike in Paris a few years ago brought me superb cooperation from Lufthansa, which was my two-segment route home from an all-United website purchase. (No deliberate overnights involved.)

Just adding it here that United is indeed having a flash sale at the moment. Flights to most of Europe from most major US cities are on sale. Denver is included it seems but it doesn't seem like Honolulu was. By forcing that routing, you got to take advantage of that :)

Frank II, I do not read her post as saying she has a ticket from Honolulu to London with a stopover in Denver. She booked this "multi-city" as four separate flights, all on one booking. I believe that is what she means be "forcing" the Denver stopover. It was not offered as a layover between Honolulu and London. Fortunately she benefits, price-wise, from this routing.

Lola- that's exactly what I did. The 4 separate legs. Hence my concern. I know that the airline will get you from point A to B, even if it ends up involving time or route changes. I just wasn't sure if having 4 independent legs changes anything. Would they get you from point A to B on leg 1 without necessarily caring about--or even seeing in their system--the impact on leg 2? Seems like the general consensus is that it'll be ok, and luckily I do have a fair amount of buffer built in. Tim- that's very reassuring to hear that Lufthansa treated you so well. I've never flown them and was wondering how they are. Ok, so there really is some kind of amazing sale on at United? Wow, how lucky am I to have stumbled upon it, thinking I was just looking far ahead for some data points on pricing! There should be a red alert all over this forum. Thanks to all for sharing your input and experience.

It could be all on one booking with the same confirmation number, just like a round-trip ticket would be. But whether the four separate legs are "all on one ticket" for the purpose of protected flights is what I cannot stay. I do feel the risk is low, because of the overnight stay in Denver in each direction. But there could be problems if the inbound flight to Denver is cancelled and the replacement arrives too late the next day to connect with the booked onward flight.

Maybe call United airlines and ask?

Yes, one ticket, one confirmation #. Only difference is instead of searching for flights from HNL-LHR and picking the layover location/ time that I liked, I selected one leg HNL-DEN. Second new leg DEN-LHR (one day apart), etc, etc in reverse. Sorry, not sure how to explain it better. Could be because this was all in google flights, then connects me over to United to complete the purchase, so maybe that search function for multi-city with "legs" is arranged differently on other sites. In any case, one booking, one ticket.