Will skipping the second leg of my flight mess up my return flight?

I'm glad I read this post. I'm leaving for Italy in a couple days (flying Alitalia). The ticket to Pisa was about $200 cheaper than to Rome, so I had planned to skip the Rome to Pisa portion & spend the day in Rome before training up to Florence.

What happens if I happen to "miss" the connecting flight. It is a real possibility as I only have about 1.5 hours between flights.

Adam,

Did you read this part? " including your flight back to the US "

Skipping the London-Dublin leg will cancel all remaining legs of your reservation including your flight back to the US. By spending a few days in London, your doing a "stopover". Discount/restricted discounts don't typically permit stopovers, if you want to do that you have to purchase a full fare ticket; which of course costs a lot more.

Simple answer; Yes.

Should of considered flying Open Jaw (Into London, Out of Dublin) You may be able to do a change for a fee, but you might be better off booking Ryan Air RT from Dublin to London.

I tried finding tickets by "open jaw", but they were almost $300 more than the ticket I found. I guess I'll just use that money I saved and get a cheap Ryan Air flight.

Thanks.

I think Adam means he'll find a cheap Ryan Air flight to go back to London from Dublin if he wants to see London, not skip the last leg.

That's right, I'll just take my regular trip as scheduled and find a cheap round-trip ticket once I'm there back to London (or Paris, wherever). I asked AA about "missing" my second leg, and they said there is a charge if you miss it completely, as they cancel the remainder of your itinerary. I'm not sure if you're just late because your layover isn't long enough; hopefully they just stick you on the next available...I figure I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Adam, if your first flight is late, and you miss your connection, and you're flying on one ticket...the airline will put you on the next available flight.

If you made two seperate reservations and you miss the second flight, it's your problem.

BTW--when you get to London, since you're connecting there, you don't have to go through immigration and customs. Just follow signs to "flight connections."

The MSBNC article is referring to travelers who buy a round trip ticket and throw away the return portion to avoid paying more for expensive one-way tickets. This not relevant to what the original poster was asking. The original post wants to skip a leg in the middle of the itinerary, but still be able to use the rest of the legs at a later date.

I've done it with no problem. That was in 2005 and it was a different airline.

I originally booked an open jaw flight into A'dam on Northwest/KLM with a connection on Lufthansa into Germany. The second half of the open jaw was a return with Northwest/KLM out of Rome.

After booking the flight, I decided it was better to book my car lease out of Amsterdam, so I skipped the connection. It didn't cause any problem. Maybe because it was a different airline and the return was with the airline I hadn't skipped.

Airlines seem to look for this stuff and consider it cheating so I'm not sure I would recommend it.

I happen to read this today on MSNBC.com by Christopher Elliott and it fits this question and another. So I thought I would post it here. You can read the full thing here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29464720/

But the answer to this question can be found on page 2, under topic #4.

1. Miss your connection, pay a fine This loophole is one of the oddest in the travel industry. Make that any industry. If you happen to miss a connection or fail to use the return portion of your roundtrip ticket, then the airline might fine your travel agency, and your agent could turn around and try to fine you. Why? Well, many airlines have silly rules that say you must use your entire ticket. Of course they can’t force passengers to live by them. But they can stick it to travel agents by threatening to strip them of their ability to issue tickets. When a so-called “illegal” ticket is discovered by the airline, it sends a debit memo, which is a bill for a full fare ticket — the most expensive kind in the system. Failure to pay can result in the agency losing its ability to book tickets for the airline. I know of several cases where an agent has asked the client to pay a debit memo. How weird is that?

What it means to you: If you’re planning to throw away a portion of your ticket, don’t use a travel agent. And don’t give the airline your frequent flier number — it can be use to track “illegal” behavior and they’ll come after your miles.

Perhaps not the same situation, but last year I booked a flight into Paris and out of Rome on Continental. I then booked a separate RT ticket from Paris to Venice on Alitalia (much cheaper than a one-way). So, I flew in to Paris, flew to Venice, dropped the return leg of my Venice ticket, then took a train to Rome and flew out there. No problems from the airline.

In the case of Antuany, if for some reason you do miss your connection due to delays, as mentioned, the airline is obligated to put you on the next available flight. Now....That does not mean you can't make a fuss or offer to accept the cancellation of that leg...maybe even accept some compensation in return for taking the train to Pisa.

For the OP Adam, If you are interested in a RT ticket on Ryan Air, Dublin to London, this is best done well ahead of your trip to get the best rates.