Married segments - what does this mean

[sanne]

I have tried to find relevant information about this on this forum but sorry couldn't find it.

Please could someone explain exactly what this means.

Thanks

 

[I love to travel]

It can be a complicated issue but some airlines do not let you book certain sectors together. What is your issue might be able to offer more advice

 

[BacchusMarsh]

some airlines do not let you book certain sectors together

Which is the opposite of "married segments".

 

[Captain Halliday]

I have tried to find relevant information about this on this forum but sorry couldn't find it.

Please could someone explain exactly what this means.

Thanks

It's where an airline joins two sectors together on a route. Usually one going through their hub.

Cathay is one airline that uses MSC. So for example if you wanted to book an award flight from London to Sydney with CX the two sectors LHR-HKG and HKG-SYD would be married. You would need to find an Award seat LHR-SYD for it to be valid.

If you look on the CX website it would be very rare to find this award available. You might find LHR-HKG and HKG-SYD both available on the same day as individual sectors, however you can't book them and join them together. CX would make you stop for at least 24 hrs on HKG.

I believe QR also uses MSC.

 

[oz_mark]

Married Flights are connecting flights that are booked within a PNR and ‘locked’ together.

Married segments are based on the Origin and Destination of the itinerary. In the Qantas context, connecting flights are normally married (subject to connection times), and you often cannot change one flight independantly of others on the itinerary.

 

[sanne]

It's where an airline joins two sectors together on a route. Usually one going through their hub.

Cathay is one airline that uses MSC. So for example if you wanted to book an award flight from London to Sydney with CX the two sectors LHR-HKG and HKG-SYD would be married. You would need to find an Award seat LHR-SYD for it to be valid.

If you look on the CX website it would be very rare to find this award available. You might find LHR-HKG and HKG-SYD both available on the same day as individual sectors, however you can't book them and join them together. CX would make you stop for at least 24 hrs on HKG.

I believe QR also uses MSC.

Thank you all for your replies and advice.

Captain Halliday - this is exactly the scenario I'm looking at. Because they seems to be no availability of SYD/JNB/SYD in J award ( I'm platinum ) I have been looking at alternatives.

Using the multi tool function I can find availability for CX J award BNE/HKG then HKG/JNB with a few hours transit in HKG. I can do a dummy booking and it all seems to be OK. Does that mean that this is OK to book? These flights do not appear when booking this itinerary in the usual way i.e. not using the multi tool function. Will I need to stay more than 24 hours in HK?

Because I will be away overseas with limit internet/phone when I need to book these flights I'm hoping to understand what I can do and what I can't do.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Thank you all for your replies and advice.

Captain Halliday - this is exactly the scenario I'm looking at. Because they seems to be no availability of SYD/JNB/SYD in J award ( I'm platinum ) I have been looking at alternatives.

Using the multi tool function I can find availability for CX J award BNE/HKG then HKG/JNB with a few hours transit in HKG. I can do a dummy booking and it all seems to be OK. Does that mean that this is OK to book? These flights do not appear when booking this itinerary in the usual way i.e. not using the multi tool function. Will I need to stay more than 24 hours in HK?

Because I will be away overseas with limit internet/phone when I need to book these flights I'm hoping to understand what I can do and what I can't do.

Thanks for your help.

To book SYD-JNB-SYD on CX, you need to be able to see exactly that on the CX website (or QF website is using QF points).

If you can see individual segments, but not the whole route, you won't be able to book it without a stopover of >24 hours.

Also if using the QF website, be aware it has a glitch and sometimes shows phantom CX availability. The best way to double check is to log into JAL mileage bank. It shows the actual number of Award seats available on any route.

 

[sanne]

Thanks.

I've been trying to find BNE/SYD/JNB J award return on QF 63/64 using QF points. Usually have no problem , do this once or twice a year. Right now, nothing! Hence looking at an alternative. CX seemed the best alternative but not if we have to stay over in HK for >24 hours.

I've not ever looked at the JAL Mileage bank. Do I have to join?

 

[Captain Halliday]

Thanks.

I've been trying to find BNE/SYD/JNB J award return on QF 63/64 using QF points. Usually have no problem , do this once or twice a year. Right now, nothing! Hence looking at an alternative. CX seemed the best alternative but not if we have to stay over in HK for >24 hours.

I've not ever looked at the JAL Mileage bank. Do I have to join?

Yes, but it's free.

It takes a bit of getting used to. It feels like using a 1980's website with fonts that look like they came out of a dot matrix printer.

 

[sanne]

Thanks for the help Captain Halliday.

 

[toasty]

Basically this means that if you want to look for flights in a specific fare class (e.g. business award class, or U class) from A to B on a specific airline, but it goes via some hub C, usually with a transit of <24 hours, then your search needs to be for A to B, and there needs to be U class available i.e. you can't break up your search. Airlines such as AA, CX, QF and QR use married segment control, or MSC for short.

Say you want JNB-SYD on CX. Then you need to search for business awards JNB-SYD, and there must be U availability for that particular search. Scenarios such as these are entirely possible with MSC:

• There's no U class JNB-SYD, but there's U class on both JNB-HKG and HKG-SYD separately
• There's U class JNB-SYD, but there's no U class on JNB-HKG and/or HKG-SYD

At first glance, MSC might be extremely annoying, but here's a counterexample:
Say you live in ADL and want to fly QF to SIN, so you need to transfer at MEL. The preceding ADL-MEL flights that connect to MEL-SIN have high loads (for the sake of this scenario, assume there is no "sale" [if you have ExpertFlyer you'll see N0 Q0 O0] availability, but plenty of "saver" availability), but MEL-SIN is empty (has lots of "sale" and "saver" availability [ExpertFlyer: N9 Q9 O9]). What MSC lets the airline do is that if you search for ADL-SIN, you will get the "sale" class availability for both the ADL-MEL and MEL-SIN sectors, despite the fact that ADL-MEL on its own has no "sale" availability. If QF didn't use MSC, then you would have to purchase the more expensive "saver" fare.

Hopefully that was a sufficiently watered down explanation

 

[travelislife]

Thank you all for your replies and advice.

Captain Halliday - this is exactly the scenario I'm looking at. Because they seems to be no availability of SYD/JNB/SYD in J award ( I'm platinum ) I have been looking at alternatives.

Using the multi tool function I can find availability for CX J award BNE/HKG then HKG/JNB with a few hours transit in HKG. I can do a dummy booking and it all seems to be OK. Does that mean that this is OK to book? These flights do not appear when booking this itinerary in the usual way i.e. not using the multi tool function. Will I need to stay more than 24 hours in HK?

Because I will be away overseas with limit internet/phone when I need to book these flights I'm hoping to understand what I can do and what I can't do.

Thanks for your help.

If you are platinum have you called and asked to see if they will release a seat for you?

 

[JessicaTam]

[mod hat]
Thread moved from QF to Your Questions sub-forum, as it relates to many airlines.
[/mod hat]

 

[froggerADL]

Because they seems to be no availability of SYD/JNB/SYD in J award ( I'm platinum ) I have been looking at alternatives.

As travelislife said, as a QF Platinum you should call them to request release of seats. I did this and had two J seats released within five minutes.

 

[sanne]

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and explanations. Really appreciate it.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Using the multi tool function I can find availability for CX J award BNE/HKG then HKG/JNB with a few hours transit in HKG. I can do a dummy booking and it all seems to be OK. Does that mean that this is OK to book? These flights do not appear when booking this itinerary in the usual way i.e. not using the multi tool function. Will I need to stay more than 24 hours in HK?

Married segments restricts availability end-to-end between two points. For example you might find MEL-LHR available as a single flight on the QF9, but you cannot book the MEL-DXB or the DXB-LHR as individual sectors on the QF9 (for example for connecting purposes).

It is not uncommon for a search MEL-LHR (for example) to yield little or no results on the QF engine or indeed other engines. It is perfectly fine to search sector by sector using the multi-city tool. If the individual sectors come back then you can book those as a single itinerary no problems. There is no need to have a stay of 24 hours.

QF was (is?) having some problems booking AA award flights ATM, especially 'seeing' connections. A search JFK-LAX might show nothing (even at the call centre), but breaking it into JFK-ORD and ORD-LAX will return results individually. These can be booked by the call centre as a single itinerary.

 

[sanne]

Married segments restricts availability end-to-end between two points. For example you might find MEL-LHR available as a single flight on the QF9, but you cannot book the MEL-DXB or the DXB-LHR as individual sectors on the QF9 (for example for connecting purposes).

It is not uncommon for a search MEL-LHR (for example) to yield little or no results on the QF engine or indeed other engines. It is perfectly fine to search sector by sector using the multi-city tool. If the individual sectors come back then you can book those as a single itinerary no problems. There is no need to have a stay of 24 hours.

QF was (is?) having some problems booking AA award flights ATM, especially 'seeing' connections. A search JFK-LAX might show nothing (even at the call centre), but breaking it into JFK-ORD and ORD-LAX will return results individually. These can be booked by the call centre as a single itinerary.

Great explanation, thanks.

Just to confirm what you said.

If there is no availability BNE/HKG/JNB I can still book BNE/HKG HKG/JNB on separate bookings i.e. different PRNs (assuming there is availability of course) with < 24 hours transit. This will, I would think, cost more in terms of points but at least doable.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Great explanation, thanks.

Just to confirm what you said.

If there is no availability BNE/HKG/JNB I can still book BNE/HKG HKG/JNB on separate bookings i.e. different PRNs (assuming there is availability of course) with < 24 hours transit. This will, I would think, cost more in terms of points but at least doable.

That's correct - if you can see availability on individual segments then they're not married.

If you are booking through Qantas (either on line or through the call centre) they will charge you for the total distance if using a single carrier, or carriers from within the same award table. If you split carriers from different award tables you will be charged individually for each of those arlines, or you will have to move to the 'oneworld award' if more than two carriers.

So if you use CX all the way to HKG and JNB they will charge you one award based on the distance AU-HKG-JNB. If you were to use Qantas to Hong Kong, then CX to JNB, you'll be charged based on the distance of each of the QF and CX legs.


(note: it can get a whole lot more complicated if you're using married segments in the middle of a longer itinerary, but this shouldn't be an issue for individual sectors. Married segments in the middle of an itinerary may be possible with a manual override or alternatively require a 24 hour stopover.)

 

[sanne]

That's correct - if you can see availability on individual segments then they're not married.

If you are booking through Qantas (either on line or through the call centre) they will charge you for the total distance if using a single carrier, or carriers from within the same award table. If you split carriers from different award tables you will be charged individually for each of those arlines, or you will have to move to the 'oneworld award' if more than two carriers.

So if you use CX all the way to HKG and JNB they will charge you one award based on the distance AU-HKG-JNB. If you were to use Qantas to Hong Kong, then CX to JNB, you'll be charged based on the distance of each of the QF and CX legs.


(note: it can get a whole lot more complicated if you're using married segments in the middle of a longer itinerary, but this shouldn't be an issue for individual sectors. Married segments in the middle of an itinerary may be possible with a manual override or alternatively require a 24 hour stopover.)

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions - really appreciate it. What a great site this is. Used it many times over the years and try to contribute now and again when I can.