canceling a return flight

[jaygregory 1]

hey i was advised that getting a return flight was much cheaper than getting a one way flight, which it was.

i was also told to be very sure that i canceled the return part because it would mess with my AOS.

i just wanted to see if the bit about needing to cancel was true?

and if anyone knew if American Airlines charge for you canceling the return part of a 2 way flight?

I dont think my ticket is refundable, but it shouldnt cost me anything more right?

[william_wallace 8]

hey i was advised that getting a return flight was much cheaper than getting a one way flight, which it was.

i was also told to be very sure that i canceled the return part because it would mess with my AOS.

i just wanted to see if the bit about needing to cancel was true?

and if anyone knew if American Airlines charge for you canceling the return part of a 2 way flight?

I dont think my ticket is refundable, but it shouldnt cost me anything more right?

Best thing to do is call and ask them. I came over on my K1 with a one way ticket through vayama.com. Never was an issue or a problem.

[HeatDeath 430]

The reason to always cancel a return flight is this:

If you don't cancel, your name will remain attached to that seat. When you don't check in to the flight, the airline reps at the gate will start trying to sell your seat to someone flying standby. If they do so, they are supposed to remove your name from the flight roster and replace it with the name of the person they sell your seat to.

There have been a couple of occasions reported by members here where they airline reps sold a return seat to someone flying standby, but failed to change the name.

If this happens to you, it will cause you serious problems with your AOS, the reason being that USCIS's computer background check will discover your name on an outbound flight before your AP has been approved. The USCIS adjudicator will conclude that your AOS application has been abandoned, and should be denied. Furthermore [if you have an interview], they will be very curious as to how you got back in the US without showing up on the roster of a subsequent inbound flight.

As you can well imagine, this is an absolute nightmare to straighten out. The cold hard truth of the matter is that USCIS trusts the airline gate reps, and the computer records they are responsible to create, a lot more than they trust you. If it's your word against the airline's computer, guess who wins?

Granted, this is the worst case scenario, and depends on a fairly infrequent sequence of foulups by the airline reps. But it's still worthwhile to cancel the flight, even if there is a small fee, just to make sure this can't happen to you.

Edited September 1, 2011 by HeatDeath

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

hey i was advised that getting a return flight was much cheaper than getting a one way flight, which it was.

i was also told to be very sure that i canceled the return part because it would mess with my AOS.

i just wanted to see if the bit about needing to cancel was true?

and if anyone knew if American Airlines charge for you canceling the return part of a 2 way flight?

I dont think my ticket is refundable, but it shouldnt cost me anything more right?

There have been a couple of cases here on VJ where a K1 came with a round trip ticket and didn't cancel the return ticket. When the K1 didn't show up for the return flight the airline sold the seat to a standby passenger, but apparently didn't update their passenger manifest with DHS, who subsequently recorded that the K1 had left the US. When the K1 filed for AOS they were denied because USCIS records indicated that they had left the US without advance parole, and were no longer eligible to adjust based on the K1 petition. Many others have bought round trip tickets and had no problems.

I wouldn't put my entire faith on the competency of the airlines employees to get it right. I'd cancel the return ticket, even if it means paying a fee.

[A + M 29]

1.800.433.7300

Edited September 2, 2011 by A + M