Combining tickets on same route

I'm from London but recently moved to New York. Because of the way my flight bookings turned out I spend all of the time in New York with an unused (flexible) return leg to London sitting open. This flexible ticket is valuable in case I need to fly back unexpectedly. However, if, whilst in the US I book another return flight from JFK-LHR with Virgin (say, for a short trip back to London with fixed dates) before I finish the return leg of the other ticket will that leg be cancelled/anulled? I guess what I'm asking is whether I can have 2 tickets 'in use' at the same time. Does that make sense? I just wonder whether the system can't deal with it. If I cannot have this with Virgin presumably I can book with another airline and be ok? I really don't want to lose the flexible leg to London or use it when its not really necessary. I emailed virgin but no response. Prob best ring them I guess but anyone know anything about this?

[Darren Wheeler]

ISTBC but you can't have 2 ticket on the same flight in the same name. One will get cancelled and I think it's the newest booking. If you book 2 seats, say, for a musical instrument etc., then the booking has to be fudged slightly by the airline.

[Neil]

SO you mean you want to leave your flexible return portion open yet book another return flight to use before you have used the flexible return?

It's a good question and one I guess only VS could answer. I would say that it should be okay, but that is just my opinion.

[Nottingham Nick]

This used to be a common practice at one time, when fares ex-USA were a lot cheaper, and a person had lots of transatlantics to do in a short period if time.

Book a return ex-UK with a long or open return date, then book all of the rest of your trips ex-USA at the cheaper fares, your final leg would then be the return leg og your first ticket.

I have it in my head that the airlines did something to try and stop this, but can't remember if it was successful. I don't believe you are doing anything wrong if you book a return flight ex-USA and keep your flexible ticket in your back pocket; but as Neil says, if you want to be 100% sure you are doing the right thing, the best thing to do is to ring VS.

Nick

We have customers that do this for Japan. They buy a one year ticket from Japan (which costs a fortune) and then when they are over here, they buy a load of short return trips for visiting home.

It is perfectly OK to do this.

The only thing is to make sure you change your return date to the maximum validity so that you don't accidently no-show for your flight.

Neil, yes! got it in one.

Thanks Nick, eejp1007 for excellent comments. I'm hopeful now. I'll post the outcome once I've rung VS.

Cheers!

Yes what you want to do is no problem unless (as mentioned) you try and book the same flight but then there would be no point doing that.
It is an easy way to get round the silly saturday night stay rule - so you are always using half of different tickets.

Thanks again all. I heard back from VS recently who say making my booking like this won't cause any problems. : )

Cheers for all your input!

[Neil]

Thanks for confirming that - glad you got every sorted.