feelbritish

We planned to spend 3 months in Cape Town in March 2015 and bought return tickets to Vancouver where we were living. As we planned to move back to UK but were waitingto sell house we thought we would be still in Canada in March 2016. Then miraculously house sold, visa approved and we decided to go backto UK in October 2015 and changed tickets with paying a large sum to have a stop over on that ticket in UK and left again in Dec 2015 for Cape Town on this same ticket. It was cheaper to keep the return part of ticket from London to Vancouver. Now we are leaving next week on same ticket for London with hand luggage only so we dont have suitcases travelling to Vancouver without us. My question is after this ramble is do we tell them at Cape Town check in at British Airways we wont be travelling onto Vancouver and risk more money paid out on cancellation or do we just go to London, then go to British Airways info and tell them we have an emergency and are not travelling to Vancouver and to cancel the last leg of flight with apologies but giving them time to fill the seats or just ignore that part of ticket but
risk being black listed by BA as we are Avion members?

themajor

Anyone with a ticket can decide to use it or part of it. NO PERMISSION is required.

Editha

Why do you think you would be blacklisted? I agree with the major. If you choose not to use an air ticket, that's up to you.

Dundee15

Why would you need to travel with only hand luggage? Is your ticket for Vancouver with a short layover in London or is it two separate flights? If it is just a short layover you could just tell them at check in that you are only going to travel as far as London... The airline will not blacklist you they will have StandBy passengers waiting for your seats..

feelbritish

Yes our tickets are for Vancouver with a lay over in London. So we could then take our luggage and at Cape Town tell them we are not going onto Vancouver but are staying in London. Just make sure they put only LDH on the suitcase where we can collect it! That is good to know because we have some wine to bring back lol

cyrian

I experienced a similar problem with BA I recently read another person who had to pay lots more money to change tickets.
It was a condition of my advance ticket that I had to use all the sectors in the correct order to qualify for the advance fare.
My journey was into London then on to Washington DC and return.
Circumstances changed and I did not need the first leg into London.
That was the only change.
I tried to cancel it - didn't want a refund and therefore allow them to re-sell the 2 seats.
If I wanted to do that then it was a £600 charge.
You are probably ok if it is your last sector but mine was the first sector and by not checking in for the flight to Heathrow it would automatically cancel the connecting flight to DC.
That was 6 years ago and I haven't flow BA since.

feelbritish

Yes I also booked an advance fair and when we tried to remove the last leg LDH to VKR the price went up nearly $2000 but if we left that leg in it was reduced so we changed the ticket to include the 2 month stop over and leave the ticket as is but when chatting to the agent on phone he hinted that people just do not turn up and often book return flights and not use them as it is much cheaper. That is why I thought to ask and only take hand luggage and then go to the help desk at Heathrow and tell them an emergency has arrisen and we wontbe carrying on as they cant charge usthen but our fear is they charge us at Cape Town airoport knowing we want to board the flight to London.

Novocastrian

Perhaps cheaper to remove LHR to YVR?

feelbritish

Yeah I got the symbols wrong for airports, been away a while, no ticket is already booked and paid for I am just worried that we get to check in and try cancel the LHR to YVR leg and they tell us we have to pay a cancellation fee as we booked this ticket in June and if we don't pay they wont let us on!

Pulaski

It is against the terms of the ticket to not show up for a flight, so TheMajor is incorrect, as is anyone who says that you can just choose not to show up for a leg. The main consequence of not showing up is that all subsequent legs are cancelled, though this clearly isn't an issue if it is the final leg that you are skipping.

That said, obviously the airline can't round you up and press-gang you on to a flight, so in practice just "not showing up" is a valid strategy, and in practice the airlines can so nothing about it other than pout. It is certainly very common in the US to book flights and abandon the later leg(s).

So, I'd not try to tell them, just leave the airport in London, and it is likely that someone flying on standby will be thankful for your decision.

themajor

I travel extensively throughout the world. Often abandoned a leg of a flight. Not a problem at all.

Pulaski

Only if it is the LAST leg, otherwise the rest of your itinerary will be cancelled.

themajor

So you cannot PROVE your statement then.

When I abandon any leg. I then CASH in my remaining flight tickets. Then when I am ready I just book another flight Simples.

Pulaski

Yes, I can. If you book a return flight A -> B, and don't fly to B as booked, you can't get on the return leg back to A. If you book A -> B -> C -> A and don't board the plane at B to fly to C, then the C -> A leg will be cancelled. I have a family friend that this happened to, and ended up stranded in California with no valid return ticket, and no means to pay for one!

Obviously, as I suspect you're doing, if you book flights separately, A -> B, B -> C, C -> D, etc. and x -> A, such that they are all independent legs, probably though not necessarily with different airlines, then you can cancel any one, or more than one leg, and the remaining tickets are still valid. But this is very different to the OP, who has a return flight from Canada to South Africa, which happens to change planes in London; in that case you are abandoning "part" of a flight and the airline absolutely will not refund the London-Canada leg, .... it would be like asking a restaurant to give you a refund for the half of a steak you didn't eat.

Getting a refund on the (whole) return leg of a return ticket is a different question, and may or may not be refundable, depending on the exact small print of the ticket you bought.

Mummy in the foothills

I'd just do as you suggested in the opening post. Go with hand luggage to London so your cases aren't tagged for Vancouver. Then don't turn up for the last bit.
I came to UK with return tickets, once here we called to cancel the return part, they took a small fee off the refunded amount and put the rest back on my CC. Still cheaper than a one way ticket.