What are ‘married’ flights?

When you think of marriage, your mind likely drifts to thoughts of two people coming together and forming a union. But did you know that flights can be ‘married’ as well? It turns out, those digits on your boarding pass can live happily ever after. Or, if plans change, flights can also be ‘divorced’ to stand alone – or to be remarried to a different flight.

This type of marriage isn’t one needing a celebrant – clearly! But flight ‘marriages’ take place every day all around the world. Also known as ‘married segments’, married flights form a bond. A bond that can’t easily be broken, and a connection that sometimes means you can’t have one without the other.

No, this isn’t April Fools. It’s a term that travel agents come across every day. Now, you’ll be in on the secret.

The basics

A married flight is one that becomes attached to another. That can take place when you book a journey involving a connection. For instance, Qantas from Adelaide to Los Angeles via Sydney. On that booking, ‘Adelaide to Sydney’ becomes married with ‘Sydney to Los Angeles’.

Why is this worth knowing? Well, if you want to change your ticket later on, you can’t simply switch one of those flights for another. That is, you can’t just keep Sydney-LA in place while changing to an earlier Adelaide-Sydney flight. Instead, when changing your ticket, the entire journey will be repriced from your first flight to the last. Even if you’re staying on one of the same flights.

This is most impactful if you booked flights during a sale period, but that sale has ended. Making a change means repricing the ticket – which occurs at the new, not-on-sale pricing. This is one of the reasons that flight changes can be so expensive, because the total price you’ll pay shifts to what that ticket would have cost to buy it as a new booking at the time you make the change.

Amadeus, one of the Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) responsible for selling and managing flights, has this to say. “If segments are married, you won’t be able to cancel, price, rebook, or issue a married segment individually.” As it happens, Amadeus is the home GDS of Qantas.

Are all flight connections ‘married’?

Even though connecting flights can be married, marriage isn’t a given. Some flights are automatically married – we can call that an ‘arranged marriage’, if you’ll pardon the pun. Other times, flights can be paired without going all the way. That means they’re still combined on a single ticket, but are priced independently. In other words, rather than paying a single fare from A to C, you’re paying for A to B, plus B to C.

On the plus side, that means you can change one segment without affecting the price of another segment. But it can also mean that you’re paying more overall. Even though you may see a single price on the ticket, it’s calculated by adding those two separate airfares together.

Each airline adopts a different policy. When it comes to Qantas, having two or more connecting Qantas flights on the ticket automatically sees them marry. The same is true when including Emirates on a Qantas booking. But combinations such as Air Canada and Qantas aren’t ‘married’ – making it easier when you only need to change one of your flights.

That said, when you have a longer transit, you may find that flights can’t get married. (They aren’t close enough to spend much time together, after all)! For domestic flights, that applies on transits exceeding six hours – or 24 hours when connecting to, from or between international flights. Where a connection is on Emirates, or on Qantas through Singapore, that extends to 72 hours. In many cases, this makes it possible to add a stopover to your trip at minimal cost.

Sometimes, flights can also be ‘divorced’. This can happen due to things like schedule changes, but this usually requires airline approval.

Why married flights matter

There’s a reason that flights get married – and it’s not to live happily ever after. Instead, when booking a ticket, you’ll only be shown fare categories that are available on both flights. This means if one flight is almost full (with only higher-category fares on sale), and the other flight is almost empty (and selling for less), your entire journey books based on the highest fare.

In fact, the same is true when the number of passengers on your booking exceeds the number of ‘cheap seats’, so to speak. Let’s say a flight has one cheaper Economy seat left, with the remainder in flexible Economy. If you search for four passengers together, you’ll only see flexible Economy. That’s because every passenger on the same ticket has to be booked onto the same fare.

This is one of the many ways that airlines can charge more – and why some passengers end up paying more than they need to.

Married segments in the wild

Let’s move from the classroom to the sky. Here’s a real-world example of how married segments can influence the price you pay for a ticket – and make you pay more. We’ll look at a sample journey from Brisbane to London on Qantas.

Doing a cursory search finds a flight from Brisbane to Sydney (QF517), connecting onwards to London via Singapore (QF1). On the date searched, the price is $3,075, one-way.

But if you break the sectors apart, it costs less. Booking the exact same Sydney-London flight on the same day costs only $2,625.

Separately, buying Brisbane-Sydney as a standalone ticket clocks in at $236 in the cheapest seats.

Add those individual prices together, and you’re looking at $2,861. That’s compared to $3,075 which you’d pay if the flights were combined. Ultimately, this is because QF1 only had Flex Economy available on that date. As a result, the connection on QF517 can only be booked on Flex Economy as part of the same trip. That’s true even though, when booked separately, you could have booked a cheaper Red eDeal.

Of course, in this scenario, you’ll likely want the same flights to be booked on the same ticket. If the first sector is delayed, it’s Qantas’ responsibility to find you a new flight to London. If the same thing happens but you’ve booked separately, you’re on your own. That’s because, technically, you failed to turn up for your Sydney-London flight. The fact that this happened because another flight on another ticket was delayed doesn’t help. It’s part of how airlines can justify the price premium of booking flights on the same ticket.

Summing up

Married flights aren’t just for revenue fares – they can also apply to frequent flyer reward seats. Airlines can choose to unlock seats solely for passengers flying ‘A to B’. Or, from ‘B to C’. But if the choice is made, passengers flying from ‘A to C’ can be prevented from booking those same flights. At least, when combined on a single ticket.

I’ve run into that exact scenario before. When spending Qantas Points, I was struggling to find reward flights from Helsinki to Australia on a single booking. I could find ‘Helsinki to Hong Kong’ with Finnair, and an onward HK-Australia flight with Cathay Pacific. While each flight could be booked as a standalone reward seat, the system simply refused to combine the two on a single ticket.

In the end, I made two separate bookings to achieve what I wanted. But because of that, I couldn’t check my bag between flights. I had to arrive in Hong Kong, clear immigration, pick up my suitcase and go and drop it off for the next flight. Because, as far as Cathay Pacific knew, I was beginning my travels that day in Hong Kong – not the night before in Helsinki.

At the end of the day, when you learn the rules that airlines employ behind the scenes, it can be easier to bend them to your liking. Even if that means having to collect and re-check a suitcase in between…

Featured image courtesy of Adobe Stock / Edifi 4.

Also read: How to reserve the best seats on Qantas flights