Skipping a flight on a multi leg trip to save money

Yes, you’re wrong. If you do this, you will be registered as a no-show and the remaining flights in your itinerary will automatically be cancelled.

Absolutely do not do this.

Please refer to this recent post:
Travel hack airline question

Thank you all so much. I didn't realize the trouble skipping a flight could cause. I'll go back to looking for good ole cheap flights.

Did you look at prices for a multi city ticket for just Newark-Paris and Istanbul-Newark? Then buy the $90 ticket Paris-Istanbul separately? I don't know your dates but on Kayak.com for random dates in May I found a United itinerary for about $1100 and a Turkish Air itinerary for about $900. The Turkish Air itinerary takes you Newark-Istanbul-Paris which might seem odd, but a friend of mine actually likes that version in that the flight over to Europe overnight is a bit longer for some rest, TA is a good airline, and the Istanbul airport is new and nice.

Unfortunely as others have said, if you miss any leg of a flight, the subsequent legs are cancelled. See if you can get an extended layover in Paris. I would call and asked if you can move your Paris>Istanbul leg over a day and treat it as a long layover. Some airlines allow you to create a stopover for no extra charge. Also look at nearby airports. I wish you luck!

There is a reasonable flight on Aer Lingus RT to Paris. The layovers are short. We can fly to Istanbul from Paris for a few days and then return to Paris for our return trip home. The layovers with Air France were lengthy so I don't think this plan will take us any longer.

Thank you all for keeping us out of trouble.

"The layovers are short."

How short are the layovers and at which airport/s?

It’s air lingus so the layovers are in Dublin. On the bright side when you fly through Dublin, you go through US boarder control in Dublin so when you get to Newark, you’ll be able to walk right off the plane and out of the airport

The layover in Dublin on the way over is 1:45 and on the way back, 2 hours. The on time arrival from Newark is poor, 51% and 25% of the flights arrive extremely late. I hope we make the connecting flight to Paris. I checked reviews and Aer Lingus has more than complaints than I expected. Not sure that is was a wise choice but the price was right. .

Look at Turkish Airlines. Book a multi city itinerary. EWR to IST then IST to CDG then CDG to IST then IST to EWR. This makes Paris your “final destination” and Istanbul your “stopover”. This usually works out to be a great price. You will have to go back to Istanbul to change flights, but very worth it. On the Turkish Airlines website, click on multi city itinerary and plug in all the cities and dates to get the airfare. Doesn’t usually matter if you stay in Istanbul for a few days then fly to Paris or if you go to Paris same day you arrive in Istanbul.