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Home  >  Award Travel • Travel  >  A Primer On Married Segments
Award TravelTravel

A Primer On Married Segments

Matthew Klint Posted onDecember 26, 2016January 2, 2017 24 Comments

Airlines are increasingly using “married segment logic” in the allocation of revenue and award seats, which can create more difficulty in booking, but at the same time opportunity.

Explaining Married Segments

When two segments are married it means you can book the two flights together, but not separately. So for example, let’s say you are searching Air France award space from Los Angeles to Casablanca. You might very well find saver space connecting in Paris. But try to book Los Angeles to Paris then Paris to Casablanca separately and you might find zero saver availability on either flight.

Air France Business Class
Air France offers it new business class on the 777-300 serving Los Angeles

air-france-married-segments-01

 

Air France Married Segments
187.5K miles for the same flight from LAX to Paris!

The Purpose of Married Segments

Married segments exist to control fares and award seat allocations between an origin and destination. Here’s an example.

I recently found award saver award space on American Airlines from Salt Lake City to London via Los Angeles and placed it on hold. I only needed Los Angeles to London, but when I searched only from Los Angeles to London the AA non-stop did not show as available at the “sAAver” rate.

The purpose is clear: American Airlines has a naturally robust market in Los Angeles and many will pay a premium to fly on AA non-stop over connecting somewhere. But not so out of Salt Lake City. While Delta does offer non-stop service, American wants to incentivize traffic, here by offer an attractive fare via Los Angeles that may be worth even more than flying non-stop.

By throwing a bone to Salt Lake City customers, American is trying to woo customers in a market in which it is dominated by Delta. It is a business decision to more evenly allocate seats, since the local LA market would likely snap them up within moments if the LA to London was made equally available to every market.

Can Married Segments Be Broken?

Unlike no-fault divorce, it is extremely rare to successfully break a married segment. I’ve done it with United, but only after hours on the phone and only due to a schedule change.

I once booked a Frankfurt to Munich to Toronto first class award ticket on Lufthansa, with an overnight in Munich. I wanted to reduce the layover by flying in from Frankfurt to Munich same-day. This would give me access to the First Class Terminal in Frankfurt. Certainly, this is permitted by award routing rules but when the agent tried to change the FRA-MUC segment she found the system blocked her.

Because Munich to Toronto was not available on its own and because Frankfurt to Munich to Toronto was not available at the time I wanted, the change could not be made.

While I cannot explain the logic behind forcing an overnight in Munich, that is the way it had to be.

Airlines that Use Married Segment Logic for Award Tickets

I have personally observed the use of married segment logic with the following carriers in all cases in terms of award space and often with revenue space:

  • Air France
  • Air Tahiti Nui
  • American
  • Austrian
  • British Airways
  • Brussels
  • Delta
  • KLM
  • Lufthansa
  • Singapore
  • Turkish
  • United

How We Practically See Married Segments

United Airlines is a great case study of using married segment fare logic to encourage international travel. United is tight-fisted on domestic saver award space, but quite generous for its international flights.

To encourage traffic on its longhaul flights, it will often make additional award seats available on the domestic feeder flight that would not otherwise be available alone.

For example, say you want to fly from Des Moines to London using your United miles. You may well find space from Des Moines to Chicago to London for 30K miles one-way in economy. But let’s say you just want to fly form Des Moines to Chicago. Often you will not be able to find saver space, even if it is the same flight you see when searching from Des Moines to London.

In order to encourage longhaul traffic from its spokes via its hubs, United will often make additional seats available when booked in conjunction with the international United-operated segment. Thus, these segments are married.

Using Married Segments to Your Advantage

Let’s return to my Salt Lake City to London via Los Angeles AA example. If you lived in Los Angeles this will not help because you cannot skip the SLC-LAX flight. But let’s say you found the same thing in the reverse direction.

Say you needed to get back to Los Angeles and saw no space from LHR-LAX but did see space from LHR-LAX-SLC. Book it. Here’s why: you can just step off the plane in LAX. LAX is your first port of entry anyway, so you would have to reclaim your bag whether terminating travel or continuing on.

Would AA come after you for not taking that last segment? Highly unlikely. Is it illegal to do this? No, though it does violate the AA Contract of Carriage. Still, it is safe to assume AA has more important things on their mind, though leave out your AAdvantage number if it makes your feel better. You cannot earn miles on award tickets anyway!

Look back up to the Air France example as well. Say you are just going to Paris. Book the connection to Casablanca, pay 1/3 the price, and just exit the airport in Paris. But with this example you cannot check bags since they would be automatically transferred to Morocco.

Conclusion

I dwelled exclusively on married segments in the world of award travel, but airlines do the same thing for the same reasons with revenue tickets as well.

While you would be wasting your time to try break up a married segment, do keep an eye out for them. Once in awhile, you can use them to your advantage.

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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24 Comments

  1. Franz Reply
    December 26, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    I have done it with UA recently on a MUC-EWR-ZFV award booking. I needed the LH MUC-EWR flight with an Amtrak EWR-ZFV which does not come as a married segment since UA doesn’t offer the codeshare service on Amtrak with non-UA TA flights. Made a booking for TXL-EWR-ZFV all UA metal and then called to change to the LH flight. Took me about 2 hours on the phone with the agent but he got it done.

  2. marty dee Reply
    December 26, 2016 at 9:12 pm

    I paid for a CUN-ORD-CMH. I just need the CUN-ORD flight which was double with the next day layover and having to go thru customs it is lots of money saved. Basically becomes a nonstop

  3. Clara Bingham Reply
    January 1, 2017 at 10:07 am

    “American is trying to woo customers in a market in which it is dominated by Delta.”

    How about just “…to woo customers in a Delta-dominated market?”

    • Matthew Reply
      January 2, 2017 at 4:36 pm

      That would have been clearer!

      p.s. If you are the Clara I think you are, give my regards to Pastor Rennick. If not, apologizes for any confusion.

  4. Ken Blakely Reply
    January 1, 2017 at 10:26 am

    So … you advise repeatedly to “keep an eye out” for married segments, but other than manually searching the hundreds of city combinations available, how does one efficiently do that?

    • Matthew Reply
      January 2, 2017 at 4:36 pm

      There is no efficient way to do this — it is a process of trial and error. But it pays off when you find something that saves your points or money.

  5. Euro Larry Reply
    January 1, 2017 at 12:49 pm

    In your Air France example, won’t your checked bags end up in Casablanca? It’s true that you have to claim/re-check your bags at the first port of entry to the US, but that’s not true in Europe (and much of the rest of the world) — your bags are usually checked all the way through to your final destination…

    • Matthew Reply
      January 2, 2017 at 4:37 pm

      In that example yes — you would have to travel with carry-on bags only.

  6. Ericmedschoolgnd Reply
    February 10, 2017 at 12:08 pm

    Have an award ticket jfk hel-> svo on finnair biz. ..bought a separate ticket on aeroflot Econ to tlv. Will the gate agent connect the bag at counter in jfk? Or will i have to get a visa and pick up bag in svo and recheck? Any advice would be helpful.

    • Matthew Reply
      February 10, 2017 at 12:45 pm

      You likely will need to re-check in Moscow, which may be a problem if you don’t have a visa.

  7. leifinseoul Reply
    March 20, 2017 at 10:44 am

    Is the married segment logic controlled by the airline issuing the award ticket or by the operating carrier?

    I’m currently trying to book an award ticket on April 29 from XIY to ARN via HEL on Finnair. BA shows an option with a 2-hour layover in HEL. However, AA only shows a connection from HEL to ARN the day after the arrival in HEL.

    Searching for saver availability only for the HEL to ARN segment, AA shows nothing on April 29. BA shows two different flights, but interestingly, NOT the one that is available “married” to the the XIY-HEL segment.

    It appears Finnair is reserving this particular flight for passengers arriving from Asia. But why is it available as a BA award but not an AA award?

    • Matthew Reply
      March 20, 2017 at 12:20 pm

      Are you only looking online? AA shows incorrect Finnair space online. If you see it on BA, I have never had trouble booking it with phone agents.

      • leifinseoul Reply
        March 21, 2017 at 9:09 am

        Thanks for the tip. Yes, I was looking online, but I called now and the agent was able to find a routing HEL-DUS-ARN (which is not showing on either the AA or BA site)

        However, the nonstop HEL-ARN flight that is still showing on BA is not available according to the AA phone agent. So this appears to be a case where what is available on BA is not available through AA.

        I’m very curious about what causes these discrepancies.

  8. NB Reply
    May 20, 2017 at 2:48 am

    I think I’m running into this problem trying to use OZ miles to book an LH flight. Agent (and OZ korean website) can only see direct flights without married segment logic, but they appear on UA and AC sites. Any tips on what to do?

    • Matthew Reply
      May 20, 2017 at 3:39 am

      @NB: Unfortunately, I don’t know that you’ll find a way around this. The increasing use of married segments is quite disappointing and is something I will bring up directly with the folks at Star Alliance. Nevertheless, don’t expect an overnight solution. It could take months.

  9. Jordan Smith Reply
    June 5, 2018 at 1:10 am

    Hi All,
    I know how to break married segments of United airlines,Delta airlines ,American airlines , Air Canada and Aeromexico. So if anyone need any US domestic flight at very cheap price do send me an Email at impossiblefares3490@gmail.com .

  10. ChrisT Reply
    July 20, 2018 at 8:02 pm

    since when u can’t get miles for award redemptions??

    • Matthew Reply
      July 20, 2018 at 8:16 pm

      You’ve never earned miles on award tickets.

  11. Shtuyot Reply
    May 23, 2022 at 8:02 am

    many thanks for this very enlightening article. are you still reading comments? I have made some very interesting discoveries with Virgin

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      May 23, 2022 at 9:08 am

      I’m still reading.

      • Shtuyot Reply
        May 24, 2022 at 1:46 am

        Wow, Four years later!!!

        I’m trying to hop across from TLV to JNB on business class redemptions, Virgin points or Avios, and have come across various anomalies.
        Regarding married segments: Virgin Atlantic TLV-LHR shows no redemptions, whilst TLV-JNB stopping over in London is available (5 seats). By no stretch of the imagination can this be classified as a feeder route, or am I wrong.
        Similarly, KLM Manchester to Amsterdam 05:55 flight is unavailable as a stand alone, but as a connection with the 10:45 AMS-JNB there is abundant availability via Virgin using flying club points

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