I don't know why airlines bitch about not showing up for a portion on the flight. They price it that way. If you don't show up they save money because they don't have to carry you and your stuff and half the time they sell that seat to someone on standby at the last minute anyway.

Can you only do it on a one-way flight and with no checked luggage?

Because they make less money.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Never done it because it would only work for me if I was going to Europe. In which case very unlikely I would fly with just a carry on. But the number of times I have flown an seen a continuing flight that was cheaper is irritating. It is almost always cheaper to fly to geneva or zurich with a transfer in amsterdam than to fly to amsterdam direct. Few hundred dollars different.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Wondering that myself.. How does the luggage portion work?

Luggage gets forwarded to final destination.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

They've been forcing checked carry-ons more and more too. checked my carry on once and there was more than enough room in the overheads when I got in there.

It's a well known thing on the BA board on flyertalk. It's called ex-EU flying.

BA prices a return ticket from London to say Los Angeles at (say, for the sake of the example) £2.5-£3k in business.

It will also price a return that goes Amsterdam (or Dublin - these two are the main ex-EU start points) - London - Los Angeles - London - Amsterdam/Dublin at (say) £1.6-1.8k. The numbers are guesses off the top of my head, but they are close to the general level of saving.

The two long haul sectors are on exactly the same planes. It costs peanuts to book a "locator" flight - London to Amsterdam/Dublin, so even with that cost it works out a lot cheaper to book a locator + and ex-EU and drop the final leg than it costs to do a simple return from London.

The downsides: it can be a hassle to do the locator flight and the first leg, esp if you are pressed for time. Some airport staff may insist when you start the return leg that they will only check your luggage in if it's to your final destination (ie not let you collect it in London). But there are ways around those issues which are neither complicated nor difficult to implement.

With a family of four going on holiday it can give quite a saving.

This falls under the "we let companies write terms and conditions too much to their advantage".

I mean, we've got companies hiding stuff like "give us your eternal soul" in their terms because they know it is silly.

This shouldn't even be a 5 minute thing for any judge or group. Just, no. You paid for something you didn't entirely use and the airline could choose to plop an extra butt in that seat and make more.

I'm tired of companies trying to litigate profit through bizarre terms and conditions.

It's in the Bible about "honest weights and measures" and there is nothing honest about shady terms and conditions.

Then go crying for government help when fuel prices go way up. Then pocket the profits when fuel prices are low without reducing ticket costs. Screw those guys.

Yes since once you've skipped a segment, they will cancel all subsequent segments on the ticket. And yes to no checked luggage as well since luggage goes to final destination.

This is old news and airlines have been taken actions for many years now.

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DISH is how we do it.

A resurrectional postscript. I just priced one of these for a mate.

Heathrow to west coast NAm, in April in business: GBP4200.

Amsterdam to Heathrow, same west coast return, and back to Amsterdam, same carrier, also in business: GBP2200. The locator flight to get to Amsterdam is GBP115. And the final leg flies out of Gatwick to Amsterdam so hold luggage can’t be through checked from NAm to Amsterdam, and traffic can be very bad between London’s two airports...

Crazy differences.

Sometimes it is cheaper to book a return ticket from both your outgoing and destination airports. You could just use the first portion of each ticket. Or at least it used to be. Have not looked into it for years. I wonder if this kind of stuff would get you flagged by gov'ts as a security risk;

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot