<p>My daughter will be going abroad spring semester and needs help moving out of the dorm in December as well as help driving her car home. The drive is about 18 hours so dad has volunteer to be the mover and driver. He actually drove with her in August and I flew to help with the move in.</p>
<p>Due to available airlines in both cities (that would be Delta,) my husband has the choice of flying one way at more that double the price of a round trip ticket! What is the deal now if you purchase a round trip ticket and do not use the return? I know the airlines frown upon it, but can they do anything to you if you do that? I was wondering if they could retroactively charge you the one way price or something to that effect.</p>
<p>We thought about booking the return for when we take her back in the fall, but we can not book that far out, plus I am sure my husband will drive with her again next fall. If I went, I would either fly or drive with them if there was room in the car; if the ticket was in his name that wouldn’t help anyway.</p>
<p>I would call the airline and ask them ‘hypothetically’.</p>
<p>I know that last year for spring break, by daughter was able to get a better fare flying from her college town to Milwaukee, but there was a stop in O’Hare, which is where we really need her to go. She was only carrying on luggage, so I called the airline and asked them what would happen if she got off the plane in Chicago. They basically said no problem. I think she took a different airline on the way back because she flew to a different airport, and had a friend pick her up and drive a couple hours back to school; the two flights combined were a lot cheaper than one RT ticket.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be any different then if you had originally planned on using both tickets, but then changed your mind and the ticket couldn’t be changed. </p>
<p>When my mom visited, she bought a cheap round trip ticket (that wouldn’t allow any changes). So… when she had an opportunity to stay longer and then be driven home, she did. The airline didn’t do anything. With all these tickets that can’t be changed, people don’t use tickets all the time. The airline doesn’t do anything to you. </p>
<p>(People also do this with tickets with 2 legs - sometimes the price for the first leg (by itself) is more than the price for 2 legs, so they board with their luggage and then get off after first leg.)</p>
<p>I think in some severe cases, the airline penalizes throwaway ticketholders by either charging the difference between the return leg and the one-way fare and/or taking away frequent flier miles.</p>
<p>I’m a frequent flier. There’s not a thing they can do about it. Buy the round trip and save the money. Should they even hint at some sort of punitive action (it’s never happened to me) make sure you write a letter to the airline’s president outlining all the alternative travel options you have, and how you look forward to telling all the road warriors you know what a crummy airline it is. But you won’t have to write a letter – they’ll just sell your seat to a standby passenger when you don’t check in for the flight.</p>
<p>Is this a web fare? If so call the airline reservation number (even tho they actually charge for reservations booked this way!). They usually see the implausibility of charging more $ for less flying and figure out how to get the right fare. If not, I think you can also call after the outbound flight and “cancel” the return trip - this even allows you to use the ticket for up to a year (with absurd rebooking fees of course).</p>
<p>One instance where I had to book a round trip for a one-way journey was when using frequent flyer miles - in which instance the booking agent advised me to just not use the return ticket.</p>
<p>But be careful if you ever need to do this the opposite way. My S’s flight plans changed and he was not going to need the outbound leg of his rt ticket. If you don’t show up for the initial leg, they cancel out your whole reservation and you cannot get a voucher or anything for the ticket price. And you cannot just cancel the initial leg, and keep the return. They charge you both the change fee and the price of a one way ticket instead. He chose to rebook 2 one way flights with another airline and cancel the entire initial ticket and get a travel voucher for future travel within a year.</p>
<p>We called Delta prior to flying home from Germany last year, and asked this very thing. They told us quite honestly that it is common to use a round trip for one way - they appreciated our honesty and desire to do the right thing, but all they asked was that if we weren’t going to use the second leg, that we call them and let them know AFTER we’ve used the first leg. We all flew home on round trip tickets.</p>
<p>runnersmom is right though - if you don’t use the FIRST leg, they will cancel the whole thing. My H and D got bumped from their flight home once, and when they were ready to return to Germany 2 weeks later, their flight had been cancelled. It wasn’t even their fault they didn’t get on the first flight. (Fortunately, there was still room, and they got back on.)</p>
<p>Last year we purchased a round trip ticket for my daughter to come home for her winter break. After she got home a friend begged our daughter to drive back with her to college (about 16 hours) so friend paid us the cost of the unused leg. No word from the airline. I imagine she was paged for awhile at the airport and then a standby passenger gratefully got her seat.</p>
<p>runnersmom- That happened to my son. He was due to fly out of New Orleans a several weeks after Hurricane Katrina. Due to Katrina, he drove home and checked with the airlines about rebooking his ticket from home. We were told if he wasn’t on the first leg of his flight the entire ticket would be canceled. I tried to explain that he could not fly out of New Orleans as schools in New Orleans were closed and it sure didn’t look like the airport would be opened any time soon. We went back and forth with the airlines for days before they agreed to alter his flight where he could fly from home, still connecting through the original city and returning home with the same connection. He just changed his departure city, so two legs were different, two were kept the same. The problem was the city he was going to was holding a major event and what tickets were left were sky high. We had purchased these tickets well in advance during a sale and I was determined to keep that cheap ticket.</p>
<p>I know airlines have their rules, and I understand that they didn’t plan on a major hurricane, but one would think they could adjust just a bit quicker! I just shook my head in disbelief when the woman told me if he could get back to New Orleans my son could get on his original flight! I wanted to ask her when was the last time she turned on the news and saw what was going on in New Orleans!! It all worked out, but boy it took some work.</p>