Was going to book MSP-LAS on frontier for $49 the routing was MSP-CVG-RDU-LAS. the timings ended up not working out, but it was quite the dream

Back in 2014 I bought a ticket LGA-RIC-DFW roundtrip, or I used miles I don't remember. The outbound trip was LGA-RIC on Eagle and then RIC-DFW mainline, exactly as scheduled. The return trip was supposed to be the same backwards. Upon arriving in RIC, I find out that the flight to LGA on Eagle is canceled. So they (American) put me on US Airways through CLT. So I ended up flying DFW-RIC-CLT-LGA all in one day. And at that time American and US Airways were still two separate airlines.

YYZYYT wrote:

I'm using up Aeroplan points, and taking a series of fun trips: flying just for the heck of it, going out of my way to maximize the aircraft / airline / airports that I get to experience!

So... I'm going from Toronto to Ho Chi Minh City for a weekend, to see how the local Pho stacks up to the real thing: YYZ-YUL-PEK-SIN-SGN, returning SGN-BKK-PVG-VIE-YYZ. Fun times!

Well, avoiding the surcharges on Aeroplan may certainly lead to some fun trips. I booked YXU - YYZ - LIS - AMS - VIE - KSC for next summer. The return trip was booked as KSC - VIE - VCE - LIS - YYZ - YXU, however TAP pulled it's segments. Aeroplan rebooked us to much simpler KSC - VIE - ZRH - YYZ - YXU.

ANC-ATL-DTW not by choice either.

DTW-CLE-BGR-FRA was not really a connection but a pretty adventures routing none the less.

I used to work for a vacation company that specialized in Hawaii vacations and we were able to book into discount buckets on AA. I actually had a large number of takers that would backtrack from California to Texas to catch one of the DFW-HNL flights to save some $$$, some even went all the way back to ORD to catch the ORD-HNL service to save like $100 per ticket. I still scratch my head to the number of bookings I did for SFO-DFW-HNL or LAX-DFW-HNL.

I've done LHR-KEF-MSP-STT before one summer. AA via MIA just seemed to boring.

When I started a new job my travel accounts weren't established and I needed to have a colleague book my travel for me. He put me on LGA-IAD-PIT and PIT-BOS-LGA on a combination UA/US ticket back in 2013!

LHR - AUH - ORD - SFO on Etihad, just to try the Apartment on the A380 between LHR and AUH. Booking that multi-city routing was $10,000 cheaper than booking the A380 route alone.

Routing to get from Denver to Chicago totally on my first regional airline airplanes - took two days.

DEN-PUB-PNC-DFW-HOT-HRO-MCI-IRK-UIN-DEC-MDW


I did operate a flight once and was briefing the passengers in DFW that we were going to HOT, a few passengers piped up in the back - "Hey we aren't going to Kansas City?" Well you are but it's three stops away. The next thought I had was you bought your tickets on some cheap airfare website didn't you? Nope, they had booked DFW-MCI tickets on AA and it was oversold on AA and so they must have irritated the AA agent enough to cause him or her to rebook them on our DFW-HOT-HRO-MCI flight.

Three crazy ones in my life:

Back in 1997 I flew Comair/Delta Connection BOS-YYZ-CVG-MDW. CRJ-200s between BOS and YYZ and YYZ to CVG. An EMB-120 into MDW. Took all day and the agent at BOS thought I was insane.

The worst was last year, December 2017, to get home for Christmas in Barbados (BGI) from Medellín. Cheapest routing was MDE-BOG-JFK(!)-BGI... Took nearly 20 hours. Avianca A320 MDE-BOG, Avianca A330 to JFK, and a JetBlue A320 red-eye to BGI.

And this past March 2018 I flew BGI-POS-MIA-BOG-MDE. Again, nearly 20 hours. BGI to MIA via POS on Caribbean Airlines 737-800s, Avianca A330 MIA to BOG and an Avianca A320 up to MDE from BOG.

Now that Copa is flying to BGI, to get home it now only takes around 5 hours with a connection in PTY - what a difference.

Just a few months ago I flew LIH-KOA-SFO-SMF connecting from HA to UA even though UA has a non-stop LIH-SFO flight. A big part of it was because I was using miles and they were offing a saver award on that routing, but I found that routing appealing anyway because a) I got to fly on a 717, which was a new type for me*, and b) I got to check out KOA's unique open-air terminal. It was kind of annoying to have to re-clear security at KOA, since HA and UA are in separate "concourses", if you can call them that at KOA.

*Ok, technically it was my second 717 flight as a flew a HNL-LIH leg on the way out there.

My most out of the way routing was ITO-HNL-ANC-SEA-DEN. This was due to my original ticket (also an out of the way one) ITO-HNL-BLI-SEA-DEN being changed to a ITO-HNL-PDX-SEA-DEN that departed 12 hours earlier than what I had booked. As HNL-ANC was the only redeye leaving the day of my original booking, that's what I got AS to put me on, instead of shortening my vacation by 12 hours due to their schedule change.

'902

Just had a particularly fun one a couple of months ago, CUN-PHX-CMH-ORD on AA as the nonstops were sold out. When you nonrev it becomes more of a necessity. A couple of years ago I flew PHX-LAS-LAX-HKG-KUL-DPS on AA/AK/QZ, adding a couple of extra segments vs a quicker 3-stop routing.

EDI to GLA via STN. Better than the bus.

Back in the days when Pan Am hat 727s based in FRA I did LHR-TXL-FRA but thats the weirdest, if you may call it so, I did.

CrimsonNL wrote:

FRA to MUC via SKG comes to mind. It was a convenient schedule and only 78 euro's on Aegean!

Haha, nice. I remember seeing some really attractive Aegean fares and routes last year. From Amsterdam to London via Athens for example. It was even cheaper than a direct AMS - LHR flight. Unfortunately I couldn't take advantage of it. The nine hour travel time to cover 231 miles would have been terrific.

However, in three weeks I hope to fly from Amsterdam to Berlin via Zurich and Palma de Mallorca. Routing will be AMS - ZRH - PMI - TXL - PMI - FRA - AMS. The total fare was 123 EUR, 10 EUR less than the direct KLM flight. Less money spent and five times more 'air time', that's what I call a win-win situation.

Right at the Airways/A West merger JHW BDF PIT LAS SAT. Red eye RJ on the LAS SAT segment.

A few years ago, I needed to travel from LAX to ATL and it was about half the price to route it LAX-DTW-MSY-ATL via DL so I did it. It was lovely getting to fly the 747 and the MD88 all on the same trip.

I did PVG-AUH-MAN over the summer which wasn't too bad since I got a coach from Hangzhou directly to PVG and then picked up at MAN.

My weirdest journey has to be CAN-KUL-LHR. That alone is weird if you look at a map, but I was living in Shenzhen at the time and far closer to HKG, and my final destination was Lancashire. I took Gaotie from Shenzhen to Guangzhou, change to the GZ metro, and make a change on the metro. Honestly the whole journey wouldn't have been too bad if I just had a light backpack, but I had a large, heavy suitcase, a large, heavy backpack, and a heavy laptop bag so overall not particularly pleasant.

However, it was still about £250 cheaper than flying to MAN, so my dad (big thanks to him) drove down to London the night before, and the day I landed we went and visited a few family members in the area before going home.

My supervisor booked a very odd YHZ-YQM-YQB-YUL-YOW for me once back in the mid 90s. The first flight was a 1 stop in YQM, so I didn't have to leave the plane there. We did need to de-ice in YQM though, which made me miss the next connection.

During the 1998 AC pilots strike, I was supposed to fly home IAD-YYZ-YHZ. I ended up being rerouted IAD-BOS-YUL-YHZ, though my luggage took a more direct IAD-BOS-YHZ routing.

Eindhoven - Copenhagen - Los Angeles and back Los Angeles - Barcelona - Eindhoven. Neither Copenhagen nor Barcelona are even the least bit on the route between Eindhoven and Los Angeles. Added quite some flight time to the trip, but it was the cheapest option.

I once did SNA-DEN-ORD-FRA-BUD on UA and LH in order to fly first class for this first time on LH about 10 years ago. DEN-ORD was operated by the old UA 777 with recliner J seats. F on LH was on the A330 and was a blast. I suppose the routing isn't necessarily out of the way, but it certainly was not the most conventional...

Some of my more memorable ones were r/t SAN-LAX-BKK-BAH (2x), r/t BAH-DXB-HKG-LAX (3x), and o/w ORD-MAD-LIM. The last one due to AA's inability to get me and a friend from ORD to MIA.

My most bizarre one has to be BNE-LSY-SYD.

LSY is a town of about 25,000 about 20 mins flying time south of BNE which briefly had a short lived (2 weeks) service by ZL to BNE to facilitate aircraft rotation. I had a bag checked through to SYD and I think I might have been the first connecting passenger as the bag came off at LSY and I took it from the reclaim area to check in to be put back on the same aircraft and they were confused that my bag was already tagged. The strange thing is BNE/SYD is the second busiest Australian domestic route and ranks around the tenth busiest route worldwide with both major airlines offering 30-60 minute frequencies throughout the day. There was absolutely no sensible reason to transit anywhere.

On my flights up the Qld coast I have opted for the milkrun on Qlink/VA over nonstop flights. Over the years I have done sectors like BNE-GLT-ROK-MKY, BNE-MKY-TSV, BNE-TSV-CNS and CNS-TSV-ROK-BNE.

The other day I had a check in agent ask me why I was flying LHR-CDG-AMS on AF over a nonstop flight on KL. I just told her the truth it was because I wanted to log an A318. Similarly my next flight will be SK OSL-TRD-BOO-TOS in order to log the 737-600.

And not a connection but a weird route nonetheless, I flew BNE-TWB a 20 minute sector on a Dash 8-100. It's a citypair most people drive in 90 minutes. Most people were surprised such a flight existed when I told them.

I was on AA's website recently and for miles they had a MIA-LAX-GRU routing.

Not technically a connection but flying Dublin to JFK in 1999 via Shannon for the glorious 'stopover' (ie local pork barrel politics in the south west of Ireland). From what I remember it wasn't a particularly short stopover either. Thank fück they did away with it a number of years back.

maps4ltd wrote:

Hi all.

I think there isn't a topic on "weird connections," and I think it's an interesting and fun subject. I'll start.

My family once flew STL-ORD-FWA-CLT on AA to get to a meeting in Charlotte. Keep in mind, AA has some STL-CLT nonstops, but those were obscenely expensive. For whatever reason, the tickets through Fort Wayne was super cheap, so we booked that. I wonder if anyone else has connected through FWA or another small regional city.

Also, a colleague of mine flew STL-ORD-COU for a few months. Keep in mind, Columbia is a two-hour drive from St. Louis, and these flights (on UA) were pretty expensive, and usually were around 4 hours with the connection. Yet he kept shelling out the money for this until his partner moved from Columbia to Memphis, at which point he started flying Air Choice One nonstops to Jonesboro, TN, and has been using those ever since.

Do any of you have weird connection stories? I'd love to hear them. Please list the airline, departure date, and airports, although additional info is certainly welcome.

What was his justification for flying STL-ORD-COU? That makes zero sense at all.

Taken:
PDX-SEA-DFW-ICN (award ticket AS+AA, two overnights)
CHC-WLG-AKL-HNL ($200 cheaper than 1 stop)
PDX-ATL-OKC (because hub)
PDX-SFO-JFK-ZRH-TXL (UA+LX, cheapest flight)

Upcoming:
PDX-DFW-LGA-BOS (to catch the inaugural DL A220 services on Jan 31)

Flown in April: AMS - ARN - AMS - SFO return. KLM fares to San Francisco were more than four times cheaper from Stockholm than from Amsterdam. So I added a return ticket AMS - ARN for about 100 EUR. Spent a day sightseeing in Stockholm and a night at Schiphol Airport. Saved a lot of money and was able to fly on the KLM 747-400, the main purpose of my travelling.

Had two nights in San Francisco, stayed near the airport overlooking the Bay, before returning to Europe. Utilized my time in the United States by making a day trip to Portland, which offered nice views of the Golden Gate bridge. Flew almost 15,000 miles in five days, my most memorable journey this year.

SIN-DOH-CDG-MUC-CLT-MIA-EWR-CDG-DOH-SIN

Bought one ticket SIN-DOH-CDG and return as I needed to spend a few days in Paris. Then I had to get to Miami and the best fare I got was CDG-MUC-CLT-MIA on LH/US and MIA-EWR-CDG on UA.

First post of any kind after lurking for about 15 years!
My experience wasn't a connection, but an amazing milk run flight.
It was in 1982 and I was moving back from FLL (dep 1235P) to BUR (arr 659P) on the old Republic Airlines (flight 824)
The flight stopped in MCO, MSY, HOU and PHX before arriving in BUR.
When I checked in at FLL, they had no idea there was a flight all the way to BUR and they had to manually fill out a baggage tag.
My family and the airline staff thought I was nuts for booking that flight, but as an airline geek, I loved it!
And I got off in every city and walked around the terminals!

jmscsc wrote:

nothing like flying over your final destination and then turning around to reach it!

Like HAM-MXP-ZRH or similarly crazy ZRH-DUS-NUE
The most extra stops for me were on BOS-PHX-PDX-SFO-OGG. The PDX-OGG fares were so low that even with the added BOS-PDX connection it was cheaper than taking BOS-SFO-OGG or similar.
On the way to Fly the last DC-10 I did FRA-AUH-MCT-DXB-DAC, but that soudn worse than it was as AUH and DXB were just stops without leaving the plane.

I flew BOS-ATL-EWR about 10 years ago just to fly on one of DLs last widebody BOS-ATL flights on the 767-300 and connect to ATL-EWR on a 757.

Strictly an aviation adventure, flew all the way south and back up north for a trip that would have otherwise been a 4 hour drive or a 45 min nonstop.

Probably ATL-AMS-MXP-ZRH-CDG this past March. I had booked the trip to Milan on KLM, but my plans changed about a month beforehand, and it was cheaper to buy an extra couple of legs to Paris on LX than to change it all to a more direct routing.

A lot of fun indeed, and as luck would have it, I got to fly on both versions of the CSeries!

STLflyer wrote:

maps4ltd wrote:

Hi all.

I think there isn't a topic on "weird connections," and I think it's an interesting and fun subject. I'll start.

My family once flew STL-ORD-FWA-CLT on AA to get to a meeting in Charlotte. Keep in mind, AA has some STL-CLT nonstops, but those were obscenely expensive. For whatever reason, the tickets through Fort Wayne was super cheap, so we booked that. I wonder if anyone else has connected through FWA or another small regional city.

Also, a colleague of mine flew STL-ORD-COU for a few months. Keep in mind, Columbia is a two-hour drive from St. Louis, and these flights (on UA) were pretty expensive, and usually were around 4 hours with the connection. Yet he kept shelling out the money for this until his partner moved from Columbia to Memphis, at which point he started flying Air Choice One nonstops to Jonesboro, TN, and has been using those ever since.

Do any of you have weird connection stories? I'd love to hear them. Please list the airline, departure date, and airports, although additional info is certainly welcome.

What was his justification for flying STL-ORD-COU? That makes zero sense at all.

He was trying to earn high-tier status on UA, and I couldn't talk him out of it.

All in one day. The first flight 08:00CET departure time, the last flight 00:19EST arrival time, about 22 hours total:
1. HAM-DUS 320 AB6743 operated by HG
2. DUS-ZRH 320 LX1017
3. ZRH-WAW 100 LX1348 operated by 2L
4. WAW-JFK 772 LO0026 operated by P6
5. JFK-BOS 190 B60718

Last year in NZ we were road tripping the South Island. A storm closed the new route through Kaikoura so we bailed in Picton and took the ferry to Welly. But our non-modifiable tix departed CHC. So we booked a cheap ticket on JQ to CHC to catch our flight that came right back through WLG. The day looked like this:
01/08 WLG-CHC JQ 320
01/08 CHC-WLG NZ ATR
01/08 WLG-AKL NZ 320
01/08 AKL-HNL NZ 772
01/08 HNL-LAX AA 321
01/09 LAX-PDX AA E75
It was a lot of flying, and on three separate tickets, but those three separate tickets were still half the cost of the cheapest one-ticket flight.

First time when bought air tickets online (2003): ORD-IND-DTW-BUF (UA-NW) and way back same route. It was fun for me but my wife wasn't happy. Total flight time 7hr10min with layovers (direct flight ORD-BUF much much shorter)... It was really cheap.

Me, my dad, and my brother flew GRR-CLE-DFW-IAH on CO after driving from Traverse City.

And when I interned at SWA last year me and my buddies were supposed to do DAL-OAK to GEG, then it became DAL-SNA-OAK-GEG, and ended up being DAL-SNA-LAS-GEG. The return ended up being GEG-LAS-OAK-DAL.

When me and some other buddies came back from ICN last March, me and my friend flew through SFO and my mom had me booked through PDX, SLC, DEN, and PHX and said good luck. She ended up using her UA employee discount to get me back to IAH so I can make it back to class for an important test review.

IAH - AUS - IAH - AKL

DOH - LHE - MUX

IST - FRA - JED

IAH - CLT - ORD

IAH - ATL - SFO
SFO - ATL - IAH

DTW - ATL - IAH

DTW - CDG - London

LHR-BRU-BHX just for the SuperJet.

As someone who likes to include interesting aircraft into travelling i have done quite a few within 24 hours or so, such as:

Dublin-Dusseldorf DUB-CFN-GLA-LCY-DUS
Phuket-Manila in 36 hours HKT-BKK-CNX-CSX-ICN-NRT-MNL-HKG-MNL (HKG included to keep the prices down)
And once stayed in transit from London to London.. STN-SAW-KWI-CAI-LHR

olddominion727 wrote:

took UA SNA-SJC with conx in SFO. Same way on the return, just for the segment credit with FFQ.

That's a good one.

While I didn't make this connction, in August I sat next to a woman who was flying SEA-HNL-NRT on HA. All for the airfare.

I once flew ATH to TLV via ZRH just so I could ride SWISS's A332.

I also flew AMS to OSL via ZRH just do I could ride the B736.

One of the oddest for me YYZ-PDL-LPA ( Toronto-Ponta Delgada-Gran Canaria ). Azores sole A330 was 8 hours late leaving YYZ, missed the, once every 3 days SATA PDL-LPA flight and had to spend two nights-three days exploring Ponta Delgada which was amazing. PDL-LPA was on a Q400, a very long water crossing, 3 hours, on a turbo prop.

I've had a couple of odd ones as a result of rebookings:

Back around 2000 or so, my family was supposed to fly OMA-DCA with Midwest Express, but there was some sort of issue that resulted in that flight getting cancelled, so we ended up flying OMA-MCI-MKE-DCA instead. Hard to argue with 2 DC-9s and an MD-80 in the same day (plus all the cookies we could ever want)!

Just last week my SAV-ATL-SLC routing turned into SAV-ATL-LAX-SLC after heavy fog caused me to miss my connection, and that was the only option that would allow me to stay in Comfort+ the whole way.

While not the weirdest you could imagine, I'd say my upcoming routing is definitely somewhat unusual:

FRA-ORD-ATL-RDU -> I overshoot RDU not only in westward longitude but also in southward latitude.

Everything fairly unusual:

JFK: US (CLT) to EK (DXB)
JFK: EK (DXB) to B6 (SJC)
HNL: AA (SFO) to JO (NRT)
NRT: JO (HNL) to CX (HKG)
BKK: 9W (BOM) to JL (NRT)
JFK: AA (LAX) to EY (AUH)
ZRH: 4T (DUS) to AA (JFK)
JFK: AA (ZRH) to UA (SFO)
SIN: CX (HKG) to 9W (BOM)
AUH: QR (DOH) to EY (SFO)

PIT-EWR-MCI and PIT-IAH-LHR come to mind. Also, I once did PIT-SFO outbound and something like SFO-BUR-DFW-PIT home.