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I am travelling from State College (USA) to Madrid (Spain) with American Airlines. I have a flight from State College to Philadelphia and 3-hour layover before my second flight from Philadelphia to Madrid. My ticket includes a checked bag.

The same day of my flight, my friend is driving to Philadelphia by car in the morning and I would like to skip the first flight and go with her to visit a museum before my second flight.

The issue is that I have paid for the tickets, and in order to get my company in Spain to reimburse me for my transportation costs (this has been business travel) I need to present the original boarding pass of the two flights. So, my idea is to go early in the morning to the airport, get the two boarding passes, go to Philadelphia by car with my luggage and then from there take the second flight. I am not sure if this can be done. Can I directly check my luggage once I get to the airport in Philadelphia?

Midavalo
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prosep
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1 Answers1

38

Google "hidden city ticketing". This is a common practice – at least a common temptation – but one that has disastrous consequences. By missing your first flight, you will forfeit the rest of your ticket. Since you were a no-show for the first flight [and only picking up the boarding passes isn't enough, you have to board the plane], the airline will cancel your ticket. When you show up in Philadelphia, staff will tell you "Sorry, your ticket has been cancelled".

Also, since you have luggage, you would be handing it over at the first airport, and when you fail to show up at the gate, it will be unloaded before the plane leaves. So you'd be in Philadelphia, with a cancelled ticket, and your luggage still back home. Not an ideal situation...

Note: if you had bought 2 separate tickets, you could have done this, at the expense of the first, and last flight: by cancelling the first ticket. Trying to keep that ticket, and checking in at SCE, would have had the same consequences for your luggage – you could have flown to MAD and back, but with no luggage... – and you would still have no return flight from Philadelphia to SCE, the airline having cancelled that ticket anyway.