Travel Hack Airline Question

This is a violation of the “Conditions of Carriage” for nearly all airlines, and airlines are getting much more aggressive about fighting it. As noted above, the return portion of a round-trip itinerary will likely be canceled, and frequent flyer benefits may be penalized, including closing your account.

I haven't looked recently but in addition to the penalties above, they used to retain the right to charge you for the difference ...

Your return will be canceled and your credit card will be charged the difference in fare plus potentially a hefty financial penalty.

Do it one time and they may view it as a no-show. Do it three times and they will find you.

your credit card will be charged the difference in fare plus potentially a hefty financial penalty.

They can’t fine you, you haven’t broken the law. Your exposure, aside from loss of a miles account, is for the difference in fare and ability for future travel on that airline.

When people make the comparison to a bottle of milk it does give one pause: drink the whole bottle and the price is $2, drink half the bottle then the price is $3.

Incidentally it’s legal to do hidden city ticketing on Southwest Airlines.

Of course this can’t ever be successful on a round trip itinerary.

I work for a major airline ... don't even think about doing it, not worth getting caught.

Just to clarify, this would be the last leg of a return trip, on a carrier we don't have mileage status on. Would this change thoughts above?

Just to clarify, this would be the last leg of a return trip, on a carrier we don't have mileage status on. Would this change thoughts above?

No. You don't show up for your flights the airline wants to know why.

You are flying A to B to C. But you want to get off at B. If the flight from A to B costs more than A to C, you can be charged the differrence. (Remember, they have your credit card information and can add on additional charges.)

And....even more importantly...the airline can change your return flight. They are obligated to get you from A to C. They can change B. At the last minute.

This is against their "Conditions of Carriage." When you buy your ticket, you agree to them.

If you want to roll the dice and hope it doesn't come up 7 after you've set your point, shake 'em and toss 'em ... but don't say you weren't warned when you see that $1000 charge hit your credit card (the cost is based on the difference in the fare you paid vs the fare at the date of the flight you skipped, not the fare when you made the booking months in advance).

Wow, inadvertently hit a nerve on this one, apologies all!

FYI, "hack" is not my term - it's literally the way this option was presented on kiwi.com:
"Alert! Travel hack: You can buy the flight to X with a stop in Y and get off in Y, but don't check luggage or else it will go all the way to X." It seems this site may be misrepresenting this approach.

I had never heard of it, so was asking folks' experience (not opinion on ethics of the practice) on a generally helpful fellow traveler forum.

On another note, it's interesting that this question got some folks a little worked up about "cheating/illegal/unethical" behavior, while the questionable business practice, lack of transparency and negative impact on consumers of paying more to go a shorter distance has not had the same effect. Maybe also a sign of the times.

I will now wade back out of this thread and back to dreaming about exploring European destinations :)

Thanks to all for your insightful comments!

...while the questionable business practice, lack of transparency and negative impact on consumers of paying more to go a shorter distance has not had the same effect. Maybe also a sign of the times.

While reading this the thought that came to mind was that the government should take a look at this practice with more urgency than the new 'truth in pricing' push it recently announced..

I find it an interesting question about whether an airline could just automatically charge your credit card an additional fee above what you paid for the 'original' ticket, without filing a breach of contract suit in a court. I suspect there are no lawyers reading here that can authoritatively address/answer the issue. For now we are all stuck with rules ( contract terms) that are odious and somewhat non-sensical.

Hope you are able to find a solution that is not hazardous to your financial health.

The airlines can try to penalize you for it I suppose, and probably they do. Nobody has pushed a skip lagging case through the federal courts. The airlines would not want a court to tell them skip lagging is not a fair business practice.

Personally I very much would like to see the banning of skiplagging play out in the legal arena. It would be very interesting to follow. Airlines are businesses, but they're also a form of semi-public transit.

1 Its all been pretty much said.

2 My one experience was missing a flight on United, rebooking the next flight only to find out my return flight on the first ticket had been canceled.

3 So, no, I wouldn't try it from a functional point of view.
4 From an ethical point of view, to do it intentionally, exceeds my personal limitations.

Went ahead and added an article from BBC on skiplagging that might be of interest. It's from 2019, so perhaps a bit dated.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190226-the-travel-trick-that-airlines-hate

And one regarding a lawsuit that was dropped

https://thepointsguy.com/news/a-small-victory-for-bargain-hunters-lufthansa-drops-lawsuit-against-skiplagging-passenger/

Edit to add: Scott's Cheap Flights has some guides that might be helpful when searching for an inexpensive way to travel besides skiplagging. https://scottscheapflights.com/guides

So, are passengers gaming a system stacked against them? After all, *the airline offered the seat at a given price and received that price. The New York Times’ Ethicist column saw no problem with skiplagging. Commenters agreed, with one concluding making a purchase does not oblige you to use it. Indeed, writing for the Times, Nate Silver cited airline monopoly power as part of the problem.

From the BBC article Gail included.

This probably not the forum for debating/discussing ethics, but it was touched upon earlier, thought the 'other' viewpoint deserved to be seen.

Not advocating for any particular course of action, just hoping OP can make an informed choice.

1 https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-service/support/conditions-of-carriage.jsp this is American Airline's Conditions of Carriage.
2 The agreement is that you are buying not a seat, but an a seat with terms; much like you can book a table at a restaurant that requires you wear a tie (any of those left?)
3 To imply those terms are not valid, would also require you to assume their obligations under those terms are also not valid: goodbye free rebookings when you miss a connection - personally I dont see how I could have my taco and eat it too.
4 for the particulars on this "travel hack" Scroll down to "Your Ticket", then "Ticket Validity"
5 is it a crime to break the agreement? probably not, but I suppose it is a civil offense; and my personal choice is to not conflate "criminal" and "unethical".

I've done hidden city ticketing in the past with no problems whatsoever.

Using this logic, I once drove at 130 mph when I was younger. (It was a very powerful car and I wanted to see what it could do.) I didn't get a speeding ticket. Therefore, you can drive at 130 mph with no problems whatsoever.

Logical or just lucky?

But I have a feeling the OP wants to do this and is going to.

Earlier I deleted my comment, but putting it back

Would you defend the terms and conditions of a pizza manufacturer that, under the terms of purchasing this product, you agree to consuming the entire pizza, and if you don’t then you owe additional funds to the pizza manufacturer and who reserves the rights to sue you? Of course not. As Nate Silver stated, airlines don't have sufficient competition. So they are getting away with writing nutty terms and conditions, and twisting ethics to suit their business model. Except for Southwest.

Reading the saga of the Lufthansa passenger linked above who was sued for booking a round trip ticket for one way travel (since the round trip was cheaper), how could Lufthansa possibly think a jury or judge would award them damages for that? So what if the terms of the contract were broken, a lay person is not going to be impressed with the airline's perspective, values, or ethics.

Adding: From websearching I have not found an instance where these contract of carriage terms survived in court as being legal when the airline took legal action. In the two instances I found the airline lost trying to enforce these terms in their contract of carriage and get damages. The determinations were that there can be no legal requirement to consume an entire product, either in the US or wherever in Europe the Lufthansa case was filed. So which party is being legal and ethical, and which party isn't, has not been demonstrated in court.

Also adding that since airline points always belong to the airline and never the customer, and elite status benefits are at the airline's discretion, there is absolutely no recourse if the airline revokes those, as a penalty for hidden city ticketing, and this seems to happen fairly often so is a real risk. Another risk not mentioned is that late boarders can be required to check their bags (even frustratingly when there are still plenty of empty bins at departure), so even intentions of carrying on to avoid checked baggage going to the final destination could fail, best to use a squishy duffel.

"3 To imply those terms are not valid, would also require you to assume their obligations under those terms are also not valid: goodbye free rebookings when you miss a connection."

Silliness. What's "valid" is what a court says is valid, not what a corporation writes down in a fine print wish list when you click purchase. We are informed above that courts are deciding skiplag bans are not enforceable. And of course courts have confirmed that a term like free rebooking must be adhered to.

Even more, that which is valid does not violate one's basic civil rights as a citizen of a free country. I reserve my right to move my body off an airplane unless there is some outstanding issue of public safety. I reserve my right to choose not to board an airplane if I don't want to. The autonomy of the body is a foundational freedom. By clicking buy, I have not made myself an indentured servant of the airline corporation. The courts are not going to find that the airlines can control your body through threat of financial penalty. No matter what you clicked or signed or vowed to adhere to. That sort of thing has been strictly illegal for a long time.

Anyway there certainly is a set of rules that ought to be abided by. But it's not what a corporation wrote down in fine print no one reads when they click buy. It's the constitution of a free nation and a free people, and the law and civil proceedings that follow. I'm not accepting the precept that people who toady to corporate wish lists have some sort of moral superiority over those who exercise their great fortune in being born free. Testing one's rights doesn't make one a lesser person.

(Cue majestic eagles soaring majestically over various weepily majestic American scenery and scenes ;)

testing one's rights doesn't make one a lesser person

Now I have a clearer understanding of Seattle 1999.

"On another note, it's interesting that this question got some folks a little worked up about "cheating/illegal/unethical" behavior.... Maybe also a sign of the times."

It's a sign of this forum's Community Guidelines. "Do not help people break laws. Speaking of the existence of law breaking is OK. Sharing how to circumvent visa restrictions, scam hotels, or perform other illegal acts is prohibited." Whether or not the "hack" is legal is missing the point and certain types of advice is not permissible in this forum. I'm allowing certain posts to stand in this particular thread as I think the responses here are largely informative and are representative of the caution one should have with this approach.

"Now I have a clearer understanding of Seattle 1999."

Now this I had to laugh at.

Taking my moderation hat off for a moment, purely for the sake of discussion as I don't think I've seen this point made (apologies if I'm wrong there), I have to assume there is a (good?) reason for airlines to price things so that e.g. the first leg of a flight is more expensive than that of both legs of a flight. We'll call the first leg "A" and the second leg "B", and for ease of thinking about this, imagine flight A gets everyone from any location in the US to Chicago, and leg B gets you from Chicago to your destination in Paris. At risk of over-explaining what's in my head...

There is limited capacity for airlines to get folks to the destination at the end of B (Paris), and airlines using the hub-and-spoke model need to provide enough access for folks across a variety of locations (before leg A) to reasonably use leg B. Otherwise you lose bookings and perhaps long-term customers to other companies that can provide access to the destination at the end of B. I assume that the point of disincentivizing leg A (by way of higher prices) for locals shuttling around the US is to encourage customers to use another flight for leg A so as not to take away from the service or profitability of getting travelers on leg B to Paris. Thus, if you intend just to fly to Chicago and use leg A, the airline is only willing to let you do that if you're willing to pay the extra cost of losing a (long-term? aka profitable?) customer that they could put on leg B.

This is just to say that I can understand the practice of higher prices on leg A than A+B despite the bizarre nature of it on the surface. As such, I imagine airlines would be highly incentivized to clamp down on skiplagging, and it may easily hold up in court if it ever got there.

So, if you are a skiplagger, aside from its effect on the airline, assume that it comes at the "cost" of another flyer being capable of being on their preferred flight or possibly even their ability to travel to that destination if their alternative flightpath is a higher cost.

OK, I'm done.

OK, I've now had to remove some posts as the direction was taking a hard turn. As I think the major relevant points have been made on this topic, I'm locking the thread.