Hidden City Ticketing Spurs Lawsuit

It’s called ‘hidden city ticketing’ and airlines are pissed that flyers have found a way to game their ticket pricing system.

Travel
Here’s how it works:  A flyer wanting to go from (for example) New York to Chicago might have to pay $450 for a one-way fare.  However, if they find a flight from New York to Denver that just happens to stop/change planes in Chicago, the one-way fare might only be $200.

To take advantage of hidden city ticketing, a flyer with carry on bags only will buy the New York to Denver ticket for $200 then simply get off the plane in Chicago and not take the portion of the flight headed for Denver.  In the end, they’ve saved themselves $250 bucks — and infuriated the airlines in the process.

More than a decade ago, airlines began operating short-hop flights, which travels from point to point to point picking up passengers in the process.  With flights stopping in cities along the way, passengers have found a way to take advantage of the stopovers, which almost always come with a much lower ticket price.

Previously, passengers had to know how to check airline sites to find these buried treasure fares.  Nowadays, sites like Skipplagged.com will do all the work for you.

Although the practice is legal, airlines have recognized that more and more passengers are beginning to game the system via hidden city ticketing and have begun to crack down.

Lufthansa Airlines recently took a passenger to court for not showing up for the last leg of his ticketed journey.

According to a court document, a male passenger booked a roundtrip flight from Oslo to Seattle, which had a layover in Frankfurt. The passenger used all legs of the outbound flight but did not catch the Frankfurt to Oslo return flight, choosing instead to fly on a separate Lufthansa reservation from Frankfurt to Berlin.

Lufthansa saw this as a violation of their terms and conditions and is seeking around $2,385 in compensation.

The secret to taking advantage of hidden city ticketing is to not get caught.  Other tips include:

• DON’T check any bags.  Use carry-on only.
• DON’T connect your ticket to your frequent flyer account.  The airline can/will track you.
• DON’T use your TSA PreCheck or Global Entry information.  The airline can/will track you.
• DON’T use the same airline on a round-trip journey.  Only book separate airlines with one-way tickets.

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Since people do miss flights or have last-minute changes in their travel plans, an airline can’t always know/prove you were attempting to get a lower “hidden” fare.  Limiting the information you give an airline to just the basics for travel is the true secret to surviving hidden city ticketing.
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OK WASSUP! discusses Travel News:
Hidden City Ticketing games airline fares.