Airlines take a complex approach to inventory and revenue management, regardless of whether you’re paying cash for a ticket or redeeming points. Nowadays we frequently see airlines use married segment logic for award tickets, so in this post I wanted to discuss that in a bit more detail. What exactly is married segment logic, and why should you care?
In this post:
What are married segments when redeeming miles?
Many airlines use married segment logic for award tickets. This means that airlines are often willing to make a different number of award seats available depending on whether you’re connecting or not. This is probably easiest explained in the form of an example.
Take the below example of trying to redeem Air Canada Aeroplan points online. You can book a business class award on SWISS from New York to Berlin via Zurich.
Want to book an award just on that New York to Zurich flight, without a connection to Berlin? Well, it’s not available.
As you can see, the airline is only making award seats available on that New York to Zurich flight if it’s “married” with another segment. This happens all the time nowadays, where you might not see award availability when searching a route nonstop, but do see it when searching a connecting itinerary.
Why do airlines use married segment logic?
Why would an airline make award seats available if you’re on a connecting itinerary, but not if you’re trying to book just one segment? Airlines use a variety of techniques to maximize revenue and minimize the opportunity cost of allowing people to redeem points.
Many consumers think airline pricing isn’t rational, in the sense that the cost of a ticket doesn’t reflect the cost of operating a flight. That comes down to airlines trying to maximize how much they can get consumers to pay based on their travel patterns.
In the case of married segment logic, the idea is that airlines know that consumers are willing to pay a premium for a nonstop flight. You’ll generally pay more for a nonstop flight than one with a connection, and that’s because airlines know that people value the convenience. This is the whole reason that hidden city ticketing exists for flights.
The same logic applies with awards. Just as an airline might decide it wants to charge more for a nonstop flight if paying cash, an airline might also decide it only wants to make award seats available if you’re connecting and not flying nonstop.
Note that if you’re redeeming points for travel on a partner airline, the restrictions are imposed by the airline operating the flight, rather than by the frequent flyer program through which you’re booking. I find married segment logic to be common on airlines like Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways, and many more.
Can you “divorce” flight segments?
If you find yourself in a situation where there’s award availability with married segments but not on only one of the flights, is there a way to “divorce” those flights? Can you ticket an award that has both segments, and then call the airline and remove the segment you don’t want?
The answer is almost always no. Airline systems are pretty savvy, and if an agent tries to manually break up married segments, that flight will likely no longer show as available, and there will be an error message if they try to delete just one segment.
Why should you care about married segment logic?
While it’s worth being aware of married segments (since it might explain some quirks with award availability), why should you actually care in practice? After all, you can’t separate out the segments, so there’s not really a trick here to using this in order to create your own award availability.
There are a few considerations with married segments, as I see it:
- Many people search award space by first trying to find availability on the long haul segment individually, and then adding on other segments; this can work against you when there’s married segment award availability
- While I wouldn’t recommend this, I know some will book a married segment itinerary and then skip the last segment; note that this generally violates the airline contract of carriage, and this also won’t work if you have to check a bag, since that will be going to your final destination
- Many might assume it requires more miles to travel further, so you might be pleasantly surprised to see that adding a connection makes a flight cheaper
If you’ve ever tried to redeem American AAdvantage miles for travel on American flights (rather than for flights on partner airlines), you’ve probably noticed the extent to which your origin and destination impacts award pricing, just like on revenue tickets.
Want to fly from Miami to Dallas to Billings? That’s bookable for just 6,000 AAdvantage miles in economy or 16,000 AAdvantage miles in first class.
Want to fly just that first segment from Miami to Dallas? That’ll cost you 10,000 AAdvantage miles in economy or 29,500 AAdvantage miles in first class.
Bottom line
Airlines frequently use married segment logic with itineraries. In the case of award flights, this means that there might sometimes be award availability if you book a connecting itinerary, while there’s not availability if booking a nonstop flight.
This has become an increasingly common practice in recent years, and it’s worth being aware of. Not only does this explain some oddities you may notice when searching award availability, but it should also change how you go about searching availability.
What has your experience been with airline married segment itineraries?
Do you know if you can change the date on the second segment? So its more of a longer layover in the connection? Trying to do this with JAL..
I worked for two major airlines and we definitely never used that term.
As they say you need a good divorce lawyer (agent) ;)
I myself find it is more often the loyalty program dictating "married segment itins" rather than the operating airline. When trying to find itins from USA to Dubai a few years ago in J on Air France with Skymiles, there were many times when only the USA to CDG segment would be in J and the CDG to DXB segment would be in Y, even though searching the CDG to DXB segment by itself would...
I myself find it is more often the loyalty program dictating "married segment itins" rather than the operating airline. When trying to find itins from USA to Dubai a few years ago in J on Air France with Skymiles, there were many times when only the USA to CDG segment would be in J and the CDG to DXB segment would be in Y, even though searching the CDG to DXB segment by itself would show availability in J.
I say it's a matter of "finding the algorithm the loyalty program uses, and then use that to find the best itin." Start by searching individual segments and then based on that, search itins that would force the search engine to try and throw connecting itins at you. Annoying, yes. But it's what you gotta do when the loyalty programs keep changing the rules and have taken away almost all of the little transparency they used to have...
What happens if you skip the lat leg in a flight that connects two different Shengen zone countries? Within one country probably nombig deal but skipping the FRA - CDG segment, could this make things hard?
How could this matter if you have authority to enter either country? Through-checked bags would be a different matter of course.
On AA at least booking award tickets as a one way doesn't cost any more miles than booking round trip (ie, one way is half the round trip miles)..You could book each direction as separate itineraries and then if you don't check bags you don't have to worry about luggage and you don't have to worry about the airline canceling your return flight since it isn't on the same locator/itinerary as the outbound. Just curious...
On AA at least booking award tickets as a one way doesn't cost any more miles than booking round trip (ie, one way is half the round trip miles)..You could book each direction as separate itineraries and then if you don't check bags you don't have to worry about luggage and you don't have to worry about the airline canceling your return flight since it isn't on the same locator/itinerary as the outbound. Just curious to see if anyone has tried this and what their experience was.
I'm curious about one thing. It's often mentioned that skipping the last leg is not possible with checked baggage because it's checked through all the way to your final destination... But surely if you don't show up to your connecting flight, your bag will be offloaded right? Sure, it's going to be a hassle to retrieve it and definitely not recommended to do on a regular basis (specially if you have points/status with a given...
I'm curious about one thing. It's often mentioned that skipping the last leg is not possible with checked baggage because it's checked through all the way to your final destination... But surely if you don't show up to your connecting flight, your bag will be offloaded right? Sure, it's going to be a hassle to retrieve it and definitely not recommended to do on a regular basis (specially if you have points/status with a given airline), but no serious airline is going to keep a checked bag in the cargo hold without its owner being onboard.
I *believe* (and someone I am sure will correct me if I am wrong) they only offload bags on long haul international flights. They definitely do not offload bags on domestic US flights if the passenger doesn’t show up. I seem to remember the expectation being if you don’t show up for your short haul flight, you’ve taken or intend to take another flight and that’s not likely for long haul international. In Ben’s case...
I *believe* (and someone I am sure will correct me if I am wrong) they only offload bags on long haul international flights. They definitely do not offload bags on domestic US flights if the passenger doesn’t show up. I seem to remember the expectation being if you don’t show up for your short haul flight, you’ve taken or intend to take another flight and that’s not likely for long haul international. In Ben’s case study with the final destination being in the EU, not sure how it works.
Afaik on EU flights bags of no-shows always get off loaded. This delayed a lot of my flights already. It can take a very long time and is very annoying for all passengers. So please be kind to your fellow travelers and don't do this!
For US domestic flights, there's no positive bag matching (because every bag has gone through a TSA screening either at check-in or upon rechecking the bag after customs), so bags are not off-loaded. Check a bag MIA-DFW-SEA and that bag is going to SEA (it might not even go through DFW either).
I see... I wasn't aware that this wasn't a common practice in domestic US flights (specially when you take into account some of the security theatrics that take place there), but like Gregor pointed out, for intra EU flights (almost certainly regardless of being domestic or international) they definitely offload bags of no-shows.
In the case of AFKL, retrieving the bag would almost certainly result in the "non-compliant use of the ticket" (verbiage is from the contract of carriage) fees being charged, ranging from 125 to 1500 euro.
In the case of LH, their CoC includes recalculation of the fare based on what was flown (only Austrians have an illness "get out of jail free" card) when the coupons aren't used in order. Claiming off-loaded luggage would seem to be a good way to trigger it.
Air France and klm mention in terms and conditions they charge a fee. I think it’s around €300 for wanting to short ship bags at Amsterdam or Paris. You’ll also potentially cause trouble with the connecting flight to be delayed if you have bags but no show as they need to look for them and offload.
Then all the people that do that are on forums such as this and claim they know nothing about it, as they had to leave At Amsterdam as their grandmother was ill. Lol
Hey Lucky, off topic but I noticed AA’s automated phone prompt is much less cumbersome today. Coincidence?
It is absolutely possible to break married segments once they're booked. You just need to find the right agent. Keep hanging up and calling back if they say they can't do it. I recently booked JFK-WAW-MAD using MileagePlus, because it was not possible to book the JFK-WAW segment alone. I tried a bunch of different cities and found that it was bookable only connecting to MAD. Once I booked it, I was able to find...
It is absolutely possible to break married segments once they're booked. You just need to find the right agent. Keep hanging up and calling back if they say they can't do it. I recently booked JFK-WAW-MAD using MileagePlus, because it was not possible to book the JFK-WAW segment alone. I tried a bunch of different cities and found that it was bookable only connecting to MAD. Once I booked it, I was able to find an agent who deleted the second segment and reticketed JFK-WAW alone. It took a few agents though. I have also done this with Aeroplan.
What do you say you the agent though? One would assume they also know about married segments. Do you need a good story to get them to help? Also if it doesn't work our do you just pay the redeposit fee or just bail after the first stop?