Missing Connecting Flights

[rsmith1984]

I am taking a trip to Colorado Springs this weekend from Memphis. I have a layover in Denver and my sister can pick me up from the Denver airport so I do not need to take my connecting flight to Colorado Springs. My question is, will this mess up my return flight on Sunday? Will I still be able to take the return flight home from Colorado Springs to Memphis? I have heard that some airlines will cancel your return flight if you miss your connecting flight. 

[TheMiddleSeat]

If you purchased all flights as one single round-trip reservation, you only have one confirmation number, then you are correct that you do not want to skip a flight as all remaining flights on the reservation will be cancelled.  You would need to complete the flight DEN-COS so your return flights remain.

Since Southwest allows free changes, you could look to see what it would cost to change your flight from MEM-COS to MEM-DEN.  The only cost to you would be the difference in fare, but since you are cutting out a leg any price increases since you originally booked might be offset.  You can do this online, select the change flight option and choose the MEM-COS portion of the trip.  Then search for MEM-DEN and choose the same flight your were originally scheduled to fly on.  On the next screen it will show you the fare difference.  Your return flight will not be affected if you do it this way.

Welcome to Colorado, please bring some BBQ

--TheMiddleSeat

[dfwskier]

Looking at reality, 2 things come to mind:

1)Trying to change your flight with a week or so to go is likely a very bad idea. When you do that, you'll likely pay a very much higher price than you initially did.

2)If you simply don't take the flight from DEN to COS, Southwest will cancel your trip home (assuming you bought a RT ticket.). Then you'll need to buy a different   (likely very expensive) ticket to get home.

Recommendation: take the DEN - COS flight.

edit add: SW won't cancel the return of some who legitimately misses  a connection and tries to get on a later flight - that as opposed to someone who just no shows the connection.

edit add #2: Plus, if you no show the connection you will not earn Rapid Rewards points or segments counting towards A-List - if that is important to you.

[cyberroo]

Not necessarily on the rebook being outrageous.  Last week I rebooked a flight the day before the flight because it had dropped $45.  I had initially booked the flight using a promo code, and may have rebooked once prior to take advantage of a price drop, so it wasn't an outrageously high price to begin with.

Some routes are crazy expensive right now, but others seem to be bargains. Never hurts to check.

[dfwskier]

Well if you want to do this, you can contact SW to tell them you want to cancel the MEM COS flight, but keep the COS - MEM flight intact. As a matter of fact you can do that yourself on southwest.com. Then you would need to book your MEM DEN flight. I'd be surprised if there is not a significant difference in price, but I've been surprised before..

I would check the price on the MEM - DEN flight before I cancelled anything.

Good luck.