Travel question: Will we be able to miss a leg of our flight itinerary?

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Staying in Melbourne could cost us overall (Getty)

Q We have booked a holiday to Australia in November through an agent. We are going to Dubai for a few days, Brisbane, Hobart and flying out from Launceston to Melbourne for the return flight to the UK. We have now heard from friends in Melbourne who would like us to stay with them for a few days. We asked our travel agent if we could change our return flight by three days and were quoted about £825 to do so. One way we thought we could get around this is to book a flight ourselves from Launceston to Melbourne a few days earlier and cancel our other flight. This is obviously going to be a lot cheaper. Will this affect our return flight home, ie will it be cancelled by the agent? We will only be missing a flight and rebooking another one ourselves. Nothing else will be changed.

Dorothy R

A The agent will not cancel the trip if you don’t take the booked Launceston-Melbourne flight, but the airline may well. The standard rule in international aviation is that if a passenger fails to show up for one leg of an itinerary, all subsequent flights are cancelled.

The European Union is investigating whether this is an unfair practice that should be outlawed. At present, though, I fear that you will find the agent quotes a ludicrously high fee for missing out the flight. If this happens, you will be in the ridiculous position of having to book a Tasmania-Melbourne-Tasmania round-trip in order to get to see your friends and then fly back to the island state in order to pick up your original flight. I suggest you ask your friends if they will fly out to Tasmania to see you instead – you might as well buy their tickets rather than doubling back yourself.

For future reference: your choice of travelling in November is excellent. But booking at least six months ahead is unnecessary in this lowest of seasons.

My preferred time to book a flight to Australia is the day before departure. I have just checked fares to Melbourne leaving tomorrow, and there are plenty of options under £700 return. Even booking in the afternoon for tonight here are return flights for £860 from both Manchester and London – including a very tempting itinerary outbound via Doha on Qatar Airways and returning via Hong Kong.

Booking ultra-late has the great advantage of enabling you to accommodate any adjustments to your itinerary, without (in my experience) a significant penalty.

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