quick air travel question (x-posted)

[happycycling]

I'm heading to the UK for a masters degree around September 18 and have no idea when I'll be coming back to the States. Round-trip flights are cheaper than one-ways (at least for the airline/airports I'm looking at), and the UK -> US -> UK fare is a better deal than the reverse for the same dates and airports. Would I get in trouble with the

Comments

[friede]

Would I get in trouble with the government of either country if I book the UK -> US -> UK flight and only use the US -> UK portion?

Short answer: no, that won't be a problem in and of itself. When I did my MA I was never asked to produce my return ticket when I entered the UK, just asked to show my student visa.

So, you should be fine, provided you have the appropriate student visa for your UK entry, and don't say something stupid at immigration like "I don't know when I'm returning to the US" (the better response is "my course is ___ months/years long").

[happycycling]

no, i've run the gauntlet enough to know not to say things like that :)

the part i was most concerned about was the fact that i won't be beginning my journey in the UK, which i'd be afraid would raise some eyebrows.

[friede]

It might, but only if they were somehow being shown your weird roundtrip. But I can't imagine what documentation you would have to produce that would *have* your whole roundtrip on it. I mean, your boarding pass would theoretically only display the flight you were on, not your entire itinerary...

[marlborobell]

You won't necessarily get in trouble with the government, but you won't get on the plane. Standard airline practice is that once you don't show up for a flight, your entire itinerary is canceled. So the airline won't let you on the return flight unless you took the originating flight. (This is, at least in part, precisely to stop you finding a cheaper deal and thereby depriving them of revenue. Most often it's used when, say, Dayton-Cincinnati-Boston is way cheaper than Cincinnati-Boston, and they won't just let you get on at Cincinnati with a ticket from Dayton. But the same applies with no-showing the outbound and expecting to get on the return.)

[mappingcaroline]

Exactly. The OP could book US to UK and back to US and use only the outbound portion.

The ideal situation I would think would be to get a flexible US to UK return so that you can change the return date later on for just a fee. I was able to do that with BA once, and it was quite easy.

[curlsue24]

I bought a round-trip US-UK ticket recently through student universe, and if I want to change my ticket return date it is a $55 fee + difference in the ticket price. Sounded a lot cheaper than buying 2 1-ways.

[happycycling]

ah, i didn't know about student universe until i asked you guys! thanks!