B737NG first officer reported a track deviation occurred on the linkk arrival into iah following cle...

Narrative:

We were flight planned on the linkk arrival into iah; which would set us up for the ILS 27. When I programmed the FMC; I left in the discontinuity because in the overwhelming majority of flights I do to iah; I am assigned a different STAR. It's rare that I fly what we are filed for. I left in the discontinuity as a reminder that we might get a different STAR and/or approach.we flew the linkk mostly as published; save for some speed changes and a few direct-to clearances. All went well until we got to rdfsh. I had selected a transition; which left open the discontinuity. Just prior to rdfsh; we were cleared for the ILS to 27. The controller did not say 'via the rdfsh transition'; so I extended the approach and allowed the airplane to fly in heading select.shortly thereafter; almost simultaneously; the captain made a comment about whether or not we were expected to overfly dento and trann as the controller broke us off the approach and gave us new vectors. He said we had been cleared for the ILS; apparently meaning the full transition starting at rdfsh. The captain and I briefly discussed what had happened; and as we did; we heard the controller giving similar break-off instructions to a flight behind us that had apparently made the same mistake.we were descended and given a heading to join; and the remainder of the flight was uneventful.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737NG First Officer reported a track deviation occurred on the LINKK arrival into IAH following clearance confusion.

Narrative: We were flight planned on the LINKK arrival into IAH; which would set us up for the ILS 27. When I programmed the FMC; I left in the discontinuity because in the overwhelming majority of flights I do to IAH; I am assigned a different STAR. It's rare that I fly what we are filed for. I left in the discontinuity as a reminder that we might get a different STAR and/or approach.We flew the LINKK mostly as published; save for some speed changes and a few direct-to clearances. All went well until we got to RDFSH. I had selected a transition; which left open the discontinuity. Just prior to RDFSH; we were cleared for the ILS to 27. The controller did not say 'via the RDFSH transition'; so I extended the approach and allowed the airplane to fly in heading select.Shortly thereafter; almost simultaneously; the Captain made a comment about whether or not we were expected to overfly DENTO and TRANN as the controller broke us off the approach and gave us new vectors. He said we had been cleared for the ILS; apparently meaning the full transition starting at RDFSH. The Captain and I briefly discussed what had happened; and as we did; we heard the controller giving similar break-off instructions to a flight behind us that had apparently made the same mistake.We were descended and given a heading to join; and the remainder of the flight was uneventful.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1603823
Time
Date	201812
Place
Locale Reference	IAH.Airport
State Reference	TX
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737 Next Generation Undifferentiated
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	STAR LINKK
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 189 Flight Crew Type 3564
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

B737NG first officer reported a track deviation occurred on the linkk arrival into iah following clearance confusion.