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My daughter is wanting to fly to Phoenix and searching around it looks like a booking from Paris return would be the cheapest option.
She would return on a flight connecting at LHR, but ideally would like to not take the connection to Paris. Is it feasible/ risks to just miss that flight and exit at Heathrow.
No checked baggage involved.TIA.
Strictly speaking not allowed. I think per Conditions of Carriage, BA could claim the difference in fare but I assume this is very unlikely. Probably would happen with repeat offenders?
With no luggage, it can be done. I suppose there is nothing stopping her getting sick at LHR for example and having to exit as she doesn’t feel well enough to get another flight.
There is no way BA can force you to take a flight you don’t want to. There is no need to pretend to be sick.
BA will not want to test in court whether they can retrospectively charge passengers extra. They can charge travel agencies extra if the agencies book passengers on these connecting flights and instruct passengers not to take the last flight.
US airlines may suspend your miles account if you do this several times. So far BA has not been reported to do this.
With checked luggage it may be easiest to try booking the last leg with a London transit i.e. CDG-LHR-PHX-LHR//LGW-ORY
Even if your origin is not served from Gatwick or City, a multi-city to a different European airport which is, may still work. Also sometimes it isn’t actually much more expensive to just end in LHR i.e. CDG-LHR-PHX-LHR only
@John. Yes, unlikely. But airlines are well within their rights to charge extra or suspend/remove airmile accounts. I wouldn’t worry about it, and plenty of people do a LHR <-> LGW transfer to be able to collect checked baggage. I think if you are a ritual (ab)user they might take a closer look.
Obv if you are not a UK national (sic) immigration might have a few questions.
I don’t think immigration comes into this. In order to change airports between LHR and LGW you need to pass through UK border checks in full and your status will be the same as any tourist, entitled to stay up to 180 days, or as long as is stipulated on your visa. There’s no such thing as a short term transit visa in the UK. If you’re a citizen of a country that requires a visa to enter the UK, it’s highly inadvisable to change planes between London airports as you’ll need to apply at your nearest British consulate for an entry visa like any other visitor and pay their high fees even if you’re only planning to enter the country for a matter of hours. In practice, nobody in this situation would book a flight like this. Large parts of the world require visas to enter the UK and in the absence of a proper hub airport where BA could consolidate all its London flights the revenue from these passengers is therefore lost.
@Londonsteve – I think you missed the point, insomuch that everything leaves a data trail today. I used to have multiple passports due to countries not allowing entry if you had the “wrong” stamp.
If you’re entering the UK and not completing your journey, immigration will have questions if you are not a resident. Completely separate from the airline, but still questions
You may be right but I don’t think they’re that well equipped with IT. What matters is that you remain within the terms of your original entry, i.e. if you’re an EU, US, Canadian, Japanese national, et al, you can enter for up to 180 days. The fact that you didn’t take an onward flight you were booked on the same day strikes me as irrelevant. It’s no different from a Spaniard missing a Ryanair flight home to Madrid; they just decided not to fly and if they’re within their 180 days in a year, it’s no great shakes. It’s likely not like this is you have a visa and had to submit flight details in advance when requesting the visa, but as above, it’s so unlikely someone would want to stump up around £150 and go through the hassle of securing a visa just to change planes between Heathrow and Gatwick. If someone failed to fly in this case, I agree that could give rise to suspicions, but it might just be that their transfer coach was stuck in a tailback on the M25!
I’ve done this once or twice, BA won’t do anything. However, what I tend to do now is book it as a multi city and push the final leg back a month or two (fare rules permitting) and then get a bonus weekend away. This is nested in the avios return.
In this case, as I dislike Paris and the airport especially, I’d just ditch it or find a fare from a nicer place 😁
My daughter is wanting to fly to Phoenix and searching around it looks like a booking from Paris return would be the cheapest option.
She would return on a flight connecting at LHR, but ideally would like to not take the connection to Paris. Is it feasible/ risks to just miss that flight and exit at Heathrow.
No checked baggage involved.TIA.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I wonder if you have also looked at an open jaw, returning from Phoenix to LHR instead of Paris? It is sometimes very similar to the simple Paris return.
The safest route for this is not to discuss it at all. If you have no baggage get off the PHX flight and exit the airport. You will then be no show for the Paris flight and no one will know or care.
Discussing it with airline staff, especially those in the USA can complicate matters. Having a bag similarly complicates things but that does not apply in this instance.
When having to travel with bags it is best to arrange onward flights from LGW or have an overnight layover in London, though on my most recent experience the latter didn’t work as I had the AA agents from hell and they were having none of it. Bags to final destination or not at all
@Paul when you get to LHR for the overnight tell them you want your bags doesn’t matter what the check in agent has done. Airports aren’t prisons.
Your bags will never fly without you having taken that leg of the flight either.
Personally I’ve dropped a few last legs but I’ve always tried to book them so there’s as big a gap as possible so I can decide to dump it or use it later.
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