Airline booking ploys

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Airline booking ploys are used by travelers in commercial aviation to lower the price of flying by circumventing airlines' rules about how tickets may be used. They are generally a breach of the contract of carriage between the passenger and the airline, which airlines may try to enforce in various ways.

Throwaway ticketing[]

Throwaway ticketing is purchasing a ticket with the intent to use only a portion of the included travel. This situation may arise when a passenger wants to travel only one way, but where the discounted round-trip excursion fare is cheaper than a one-way ticket. This can happen on mainline carriers where all one-way tickets are full price. For instance, a passenger only intending to fly from Los Angeles to New York may find the one-way ticket costs $800, but that the round-trip fare is $500. The passenger, therefore, purchases the round trip from Los Angeles to New York and back to Los Angeles, boards the flight to New York, but stays in New York and "throws away" the second half of the ticket by not showing up for the return flight. It is only possible to "throw away" the final segment(s) of a ticket, because throwing away a segment by not showing up for the outbound trip will often lead to the airline's canceling the entire reservation.^[1]

Hidden-city ticketing[]

Hidden-city ticketing or skiplagging is a variant of throwaway ticketing. The passenger books a ticket to a destination that they have no plans on traveling to, with a connection at the intended destination (the "hidden" city), walks away at the connection node, and discards the remaining segment. Flight fares are subject to market forces, and therefore do not necessarily correlate to the distance flown.^[2][3] As a result, a flight between point A and point C, with a connection node at point B, might be cheaper than a flight between point A and point B. It is then possible to purchase an airline ticket from point A to point C, disembark at the connection node (B), and discard the remaining segment (B to C).

Using the hidden-city tactic is usually practical only for one-way trips, as the airlines will cancel the subsequent parts of the trip once a traveler has disembarked. Thus, round-trip itineraries need to be created by piecing two one-way flights together. This tactic also requires that the traveler have carry-on luggage only, as any checked baggage items will be unloaded only at the flight's ticketed final destination.^[4] Exceptions to this requirement only occur when re-entering a country where luggage must be processed by customs agents, when changing airports, or when train travel is involved in the flight ticket. This allows a traveler to reclaim their luggage before checking in for their final destination, and simply leave the airport.^[5] Hidden-city ticketing carries the risk of the initial flight being overbooked or cancelled, and the airline transferring the passenger to a different route that bypasses the connection node.^[6]

Hidden-city ticketing violates most airlines' contract of carriage.^[7] Someone doing it infrequently is unlikely to be pursued by the airline, but some frequent fliers have reported either losing their frequent flier accounts or being threatened with such a loss.^{[citation needed]} Experienced fliers recommend that if doing it more than very occasionally, passengers either not associate their frequent flier numbers with reservations using the hidden-city trick or instead crediting the miles to a partner airline.^[8] In 2014, United Airlines and Orbitz filed a lawsuit against Skiplagged, a flight search website focused on finding hidden-city tickets, alleging damages from lost revenues. The lawsuit was dismissed.^[9][10]

Back-to-back ticketing[]

Back-to-back ticketing is a type of nested ticketing whereby a traveler tries to circumvent minimum stay requirements. For example, say a traveler wants to make two round trips midweek in two different weeks. At one time, airlines typically charged more for midweek round trips than for trips that involved a Saturday-night stay. The back-to-back ticketing ploy allows the traveler to book two round-trip tickets with Saturday stays even though the actual travel is all midweek. If a business traveler wanted to make two round trips from New York to Los Angeles in two consecutive weeks, instead of booking two round-trips in separate weeks in the following way:

• Ticket A outbound: week 1 Monday New York to Los Angeles
• Ticket A return: week 1 Friday Los Angeles to New York
• Ticket B outbound: week 2 Monday New York to Los Angeles
• Ticket B return: week 2 Friday Los Angeles to New York

The traveler could rearrange the itinerary, nesting a round-trip home within the round-trip to Los Angeles such that the outbound trips on both tickets are in the first week and the return trips are on second week.

• Ticket A outbound: week 1 Monday New York to Los Angeles
• Ticket B outbound: week 1 Friday Los Angeles to New York
• Ticket B return: week 2 Monday New York to Los Angeles
• Ticket A return: week 2 Friday Los Angeles to New York

In such case, the traveler appears to stay at the destination on the weekend for both tickets (staying at Los Angeles for ticket A, and at New York for ticket B), thus taking advantage of the Saturday-night requirement for both tickets.

Within North America, the usefulness of this strategy has diminished materially, as most airlines have abandoned the discount for a Saturday-night stay-over for these types of trips. However, many intercontinental round-trip tickets still have minimum length of stay requirements. Back-to-back ticketing is useful with tickets when there is a minimum length of stay on the discount (e.g., 7 days), and the traveler needs to stay only in the destination for a shorter period of time.

Legal status and consequences[]

Airlines are strongly opposed to booking ploys for financial reasons. Other reasons cited by airlines include "public safety" concerns, but these are usually not explained.^[11] Many airlines have established means of identifying and penalizing travelers who take advantage of such tactics, most notably through their frequent flier programs.^[12]

Booking ploys are generally a breach of the contract of carriage between the passenger and the airline. Violating the contract is generally a civil matter.^[4] When a traveler is shown to have practiced such methods, airlines may respond by confiscating tickets, canceling frequent flier status (and possible confiscation of mileage), and billing travel agents for the fare difference. Airlines may also try to claim reimbursement from passengers, or even ban the passenger from flying with them.

In one case, Lufthansa filed a lawsuit against a passenger for hidden-city ticketing.^[13]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Vauhini, Vara (5 January 2015). "How an Airline Fare Loophole Could Hurt Passengers". The New Yorker.