Many airlines including Qantas use “married segment logic” when selling airfares these days. This is where two flights on a connecting itinerary are “dependent” on each other, and are priced as a through-ticket from the origin to the final destination.

Airline revenue managers use married segments for a variety of reasons. For example, Qantas might choose not to make any seats available for sale on a certain Melbourne-Sydney flight to passengers booking a ticket from Melbourne to Sydney. But if you booked a flight from Melbourne to Tokyo, Qantas might offer you a connecting itinerary via Sydney – using that same Melbourne-Sydney flight. In this case, Qantas might be choosing not to fill seats with passengers just flying from Melbourne to Sydney in order to make seats available to valuable connecting passengers.

Airlines also use married segment logic when setting airfare prices. For example, a Qantas flight from Perth to Melbourne might sell for $2,500 one-way in Business Class. But a flight from Perth to Auckland via Melbourne might cost $1,500 one-way in Business Class. This is done because Qantas needs to compete with Air New Zealand’s non-stop Perth-Auckland service. But there is less price competition on the Perth-Melbourne route, so Qantas can “afford” to charge more in that market.

In summary, when you book a connecting itinerary with most airlines (except Rex), you are not simply paying for the sum of the two individual flight sectors. You’re paying for a ticket from the origin to the final destination, and this may bear little resemblance to the cost of the individual flights that make up the itinerary.

This also means that if you try to change a multi-stop booking to remove one or more of the flights, you might even end up paying more.

You can learn more about married segments in episode 24 of the AFF on Air podcast.

Married segment “logic” (which is not always logical) also has implications for award flight bookings, and not always in a good way…

Qantas blocking domestic connections on some Classic Flight Reward bookings

I recently tried to redeem Qantas points for a Classic Flight Reward ticket from Canberra to Auckland in Economy. I found a Classic Reward seat available from Canberra to Sydney (QF1504 in the example below)…

And another seat available from Sydney to Auckland (I was trying to book QF145)…

Although QF1504 and QF145 both had Economy reward seats available, I could not book both flights as a connecting itinerary on a single Classic Reward ticket.

In fact, the Qantas website was not offering a single reward seat that day from Canberra to Auckland via Sydney. The only option given was via Melbourne, using the dreaded red-eye flight from Melbourne to Auckland.

I even tried breaking up the search by using the multi-city booking tool, and was able to select both flights individually and get to the payment page. But I got an error on the payment page. Qantas simply would not let me book this itinerary.

I ended up booking separate tickets from Canberra to Sydney and Sydney to Auckland. This meant I had to spend an extra 8,000 Qantas points and pay GST on the taxes & charges for the Canberra-Sydney sector (since that was no longer part of an international itinerary).

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. I’ve seen many other examples of this recently. Here’s another one…

The Qantas website currently shows that there is a Business Classic Reward seat from Adelaide to Sydney on the 6.05am departure on 20 April 2023:

There is also Business Classic Reward availability on the Sydney-Hong Kong flight that day:

But can you book a ticket from Adelaide to Hong Kong via Sydney, using these flights, as a Business Classic Reward? Well, no…

The Qantas website offers this connection as a commercial airfare or a “Points Plus Pay” booking, but not as a reward booking. When you try to “marry” the two segments, there is no Classic Reward availability.

So, instead of paying 82,000 Qantas points (plus taxes & carrier charges) for a Business Classic Reward from Adelaide to Hong Kong via Sydney, the cheapest available option on points is 738,800 Qantas points. That’s 900% more points.

You could book the Adelaide-Sydney and Sydney-Hong Kong flights on separate tickets and pay 96,000 Qantas points + $193. However, Qantas probably would not check your bag all the way through from Adelaide to Hong Kong, since you would have separate tickets. Perhaps even more frustratingly, this also means that you would not be protected in the case of a delay to the Adelaide-Sydney flight.

If you book a connecting itinerary on the same ticket and the first flight is delayed, the airline would rebook you on another flight at no cost. But if your second flight is on a separate ticket, you may be considered a “no show” when you don’t check-in on time for the second flight and ultimately forfeit the ticket.

It’s likely no accident that Qantas is routinely blocking domestic connections on international Classic Flight Reward itineraries. Married segments are a deliberate revenue management strategy. I’m sure there’s a good internal reason that Qantas is doing this, but it can be rather frustrating for Qantas Frequent Flyer members.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.