Purchasing airline travel accommodations through separate bookings entails creating multiple, independent reservations for different legs of a journey, rather than securing a single itinerary encompassing all segments. For example, instead of booking a round-trip flight from New York to London with a connecting flight in Iceland as a single reservation, one might purchase a New York to Iceland ticket and then a separate Iceland to London ticket. This approach can also apply to multi-city itineraries, where each flight segment is booked independently.
The practice of booking individual flight segments offers potential cost savings and increased flexibility. Historically, travelers have employed this strategy to capitalize on promotional fares, circumvent geographical pricing anomalies, or construct itineraries not readily available through standard airline booking systems. Furthermore, this approach can be beneficial when combining airlines that do not have interline agreements, or when extending layovers to explore connecting cities.