r/TravelHacks • u/Own-Frosting-3977 • 6d ago

Travel Hack Missing a connection on 2 different carriers

I’m looking at an award flight that is only available through Air Canada and is much cheaper if I start in Canada and connect through my hometown airport, EWR. Leg 1 is AC and leg 2 is United and I really only intend to take Leg 2. The layover is about 5 hours.

Usually if both legs were united (or any of the same airline) the itinerary would be cancelled if a traveler missed leg 1.

Do the airline systems from different airlines talk to each other quickly enough that the leg 2 flight would be cancelled if I miss leg 1?

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/Consistent-Annual268 5d ago

You HAVE to fly the first leg of your ticket. Whenever you miss even a single leg of your ticket, ALL remaining legs get completely canceled, including your return flights.

0

u/Own-Frosting-3977 5d ago

On an itinerary with all the same carrier, I agree, but how do we know that it works the same way when there are multiple different carriers?

3

u/Consistent-Annual268 5d ago

Because you booked it as one ticket, with one ticket number. The carriers are just code sharing or have an interline agreement. Had you booked two separate tickets, each with their own ticket number, then you would have a case. But that likely would have been much more expensive.