Octang Frye

I want to fly to the UK with my son and then he's going to come back one week later, and then me a week after that.

Travelocity and Expedia's interfaces won't let me break the flights up like that, and I don't want to attempt to book two non-refundable flights separately in case I can't get the same outbound leg.

Have any of you successfully done something like this? How did you do it?

Bill_S

PM cindyabs. If she can't figure it out, it's not possible.

Socal Local

I would use Expedia to figure out which airline has the best price by entering in the details for each of the dates you need, then go to that airlines website and check they match Expedia's price. If they do, then I would book it over the phone direct with the airline so that you can make sure you will be sitting together on the outbound flight.

Noorah101

I agree, in a case like this, I'd do it over the phone, too.

Rene

GeoffM

I did this for four people with three itineraries, albeit UK to/from the Philippines. I simply found the flight combinations I wanted on Expedia, booked the three separate tickets (one with 2 passengers) within minutes of each other, then phoned up the airline a day or two later to cross-link the reservations together. As many airlines allow you to choose your seat online, we did that as well. No problems at all.

Some websites indicate how many seats are left on a particular flight (Kayak, for example). If it says 9+ then it could mean anything from 9 to 299 (or however many seats are on the plane). I'd avoid anything where only a couple of seats are left.

Others have suggested phone booking: Be aware that a minority of airlines will charge extra for this so be sure to know the online price before phoning. In reality, phoning isn't going to guarantee that the agent will do any better than you at getting the same outbound flight; the only difference is that they might be able to switch you to an alternative flight without charge if somebody else snagged the last seat between booking the first and second person. There is a risk that they'll cock something up which you won't see until you get confirmation emails/letters, so I only do that last step by phone (linking the reservations).

Sue

I did a similar thing to this over the summer. Three of us flying out together, one coming back before the other two. I booked the flights online in two separate itineraries within mins of each other, and was able to pick the seats when booking, so choose seats next to each other for the outbound leg. It all worked out ok for us.

Octang Frye

Thank you all for your advice.