America's Big Three airlines have all slipped in a pricing change that can make multi-city itineraries suddenly very expensive; the lowest non-refundable fares can no longer be included.
Multi-city itineraries (say, New York to New Orleans, and then two days later on to Los Angeles, and a week later home to New York) have long been a convenient way to book, and have typically been no more expensive than a round-trip without the interruption.
But competition at the low end with carriers such as Spirit and Allegiant has pushed the airlines toward that one-ticket one-way model that the ultra-lows use and the upshot is that to get the low rates, it is now necessary to book each leg separately, because a request for a multi-city itinerary will automatically shift to the higher-priced refundable rates, sometimes several times higher.
Some consumer advocates are suspicious of the fact that American, Delta and United made the change all at the same time, which suggests possibly illegal agreements.
For more details from Chicago Business News, click HERE
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