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Two other caveats:

Don't book a round-trip ticket like this, only one-way. The airline will usually cancel the return ticket if you skip part of the outgoing one.

Don't book on an airline where you have frequent-flyer miles you want to keep. In the past few years they're cracking down more by cancelling the accounts of people who use booking tricks that violate their policy.

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> The airline will usually cancel the return ticket if you skip part of the outgoing one.

I recently did just that, buy a round-trip ticket with a stopover where on the way out I skipped the last leg. The return leg wasn't cancelled. I would've been furious if that happened, I paid for that and basically saved them money on the skipped leg.

I'd guess you either got lucky then, or it didn't look suspicious to them (e.g. your first time doing it, or there wasn't a huge fare difference from the ticket you "should've" bought). It used to be easy to use this trick, but airlines much more often cancel itineraries if you skip a portion now, since the contract terms specifically ban "hidden-city ticketing" and "throwaway ticketing". Was a bit of a brouhaha a few years ago at flyertalk when it started happening. But of course airlines don't disclose what exactly triggers enforcement.

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