What Are Airline Married Segment Itineraries, And Why Should You Care?

Sorry, but your explanation doesn’t work. If LX really believes there is enough demand on NYC–ZRH, why would they make cheap NYC–ZRH–BER tickets available, risking a seat being taken away from a nonstop NYC–ZRH passenger who is willing to pay more?
The thing is they want all and then have this kind of annoying results. A loyal business class FQTV willing to redeem their miles look at this and just gets annoyed.
This case once again proves that airline systems are crazy and zero customer friendly because no one needs to know about married segment control.

@ Nb -- It's not about demand in terms of the number of seats, it's about willingness to pay. At low fares, you can fill seats in just about any market. The idea is that airlines want a higher average rate for those traveling nonstop, for the convenience factor.

Re skipping last segment: The bag will most definitely not go to the final destination. If customer no-shows, the baggage must be unloaded too. The best course of action is to contact the baggage services right upon arrival at the transfer airport and inform them that you're not going to travel. It's a low priority task so it will take time, but usually your bag comes out within half an hour or so, maybe an hour. Still faster (and cheaper) than flying to the ticketed destination and back.

As for skipping segments being illegal, while virtually all airlines put it in their T&Cs, the actual enforceability of such clauses varies widely by jurisdiction. Pretty much every attempt to enforce it in the EU has failed once it reached courts (nowadays we even have precedent that skipping a segment can't even lead to cancellation of the remaining segments in some instances). Airline will occasionally try their luck and send threatening letters but that's where it normally ends.

@NB - It isn't that LX believes there is enough demand to fill the JFK-ZRH without connecting traffic, it is that in the case of the nonstop, they can charge a premium for the convenience and lack of competition. If I am traveling from JFK-BER, the routing through ZRH must compete with similar one-stop options via AMS, CDG, LHR, and more.

Thanks for the simple explanation.
Note on that topic a ruling by Germany’s highest court from a few weeks ago (only relevant/applicable to German citizens - who are in the majority here but there are a few):
If travel plans change after a booking is made (should be irrelevant if based on cash or miles), the airline cannot request a compensation - and shall still let you fly. Will be interesting to see what is needed (for further court ruling) to proof the required “intention at the time of booking to indeed fly the booked route/order of segments”.
German (sorry) source: https://www.handelsblatt.com/dpa/lufthansa-unterliegt-bgh-fluggast-muss-bei-ausgelassenem-teilflug-nicht-zahlen/100181082.html

Hidden city ticketing works better with partner awards than with revenue tickets. Swiss won't be breathing down AC's neck because you skipped a 22-hour connection and didn't come back to Kloten for it- and no airline will refuse access to your bags for a connection of that length.

This is a comfort for me, when I want to fly to Toronto from Japan in business class, using AAdvantage points. When you can't get to New York or Chicago, try putting YYZ as your destination, just for giggles. I was pleasantly surprised at the AAdvantage this gave me. You might be forgiven for arriving at ORD, checking YYZ weather and deciding, on the spot, not to proceed to Canada after all. By the way, never check bags.

Quite the creative metaphors… married, divorced, etc. Is that a Ben-ism, or like something people actually say IRL when referring to these itineraries?

I’ve flown up to YYZ and YUL from NYC for trips to Europe and Asia just to get those ‘deals’ on ‘affordable’ business class tickets. And, why not stay a night before or after. The new Nobu hotel in Toronto is excellent as is the Four Seasons in Montreal.

I think the logic breaks when you consider award tickets though, because the airline isn't really "preventing" revenue loss in the same sense if it were a $ ticket. The traveler presumably isn't really forgoing the convenience and willingness to pay for the nonstop flight. The paying behavior of the award leisure traveler is different. And the award miles rate isn't higher for the nonstop, it's simply unavailable.

So, all it does is make the airline allow an extra segment for the same miles cost. Unless you believe that married segments make it more fair for people who live in the markets served by the connection flights?

The idea presumably is that people will spend cash on the direct flight instead of redeeming miles with a connection.

A major issue in the current day which has made it a lot more difficult to book itins because when searching for award availability, it becomes a question of "Is it not showing the availability because of married segment logic or is it because there is literally no award availability?" And to test it, it requires plugging in various itins to city pairings that you would deem "acceptable." It's annoying and hateful. If anything in my experience it has been Delta Skymiles that has made a bad name for "married segment logic."

Another strategy is to book the married segment early, and then hope for a schedule change that will/may allow you to get around the married segment when rebooking.

My recent example--wanted to book an itinerary from Honolulu to a smaller Midwest city via Chicago for this coming March. United wanted 120k+ miles to book directly HNL-ORD-destination in Premium Economy. However, they wanted only 30k each to route via Maui in PE--HNL-Maui-ORD-destination. We booked the flight via Maui and were prepared to fly that route for the big savings in miles, but a couple of months later UA notified us of a schedule change in the departing time of the Honolulu to Maui flight of about 30 minutes. Rather than accept the offered computer generated reschedule, I called and asked the agent if we could instead take the direct Honolulu to Chicago flight instead of going via Maui, and she said sure, and did it with no questions asked and kept the 30K miles price in PE

Flying into the US and onward (domestic and international) you will ALWAYS get your checked bag at the point of entry, since this is where your baggage must go through customs, regardless of whether you connect to the US or to another country. This, by the way, is the only advantage of such a nuisance in the event you plan to use Hidden City ticketing. Remains the risk of your onward reservations being cancelled, but in the case of RETURNING to the US with a cheaper onward connection Canada, you are perfectly safe.
Also, and not as well known, Canada does not interline bags transferring to an airline different from that of the incoming flight. There again, you are safe.

I wouldn't check the weather, I'd discover I'm feeling ill. Can't risk the health of other pax. If I'd skip lag, which I won't.

Once an airline adopts a schedule, a majority of their costs are locked in. The incremental cost of adding a pax is low (a bit more fuel, snacks/food, and taxes/fees). And, for reward tickets you pay the taxes/fees. So, in essence, their goal is to maximize revenue. This causes confusion for some, as they imagine an airline should sell an AAA-BBB nonstop for less than a AAA-BBB-CCC connection since it must cost them less.

@Ben I used to work in Amadeus (now working for an airline) and I feel like there are a few inaccuracies here:
- The first intended purpose of married segments is to only offer a short haul segment (e.g. NCE-CDG) in conjunction with a high value long haul segment (e.g. CDG-JFK). Of course a travel agent could then subsequently cancel the CDG-JFK and this is why the very concept of marriage was invented, which leads me to the second point
- It is ALWAYS permitted to cancel a segment (in my example CDG-JFK). However, what marriage does is that, it will incidentally also cancel NCE-CDG (the agent would be aware of that because there is a marriage segment indicator)
- When we say "we see more and more airlines using marriage segments", maybe it's true when it comes to award bookings. For revenue bookings however, this is a very old concept and as you can see from my example above, based on the assumption that the long haul segment is more valuable than the short haul (which isn't always true). With airlines now moving towards Offer-Order Native systems, the intention would be to always offer the short haul (NCE-CDG in my example), but at the right price (i.e. price it as a long haul if that's what Revenue Management says)

Hope that helps!

Yes "married segments" is the actual term