Businessweek:
Would you “scam” an airline’s ticketing policy if it saved $25? $70? $400?
A federal lawsuit is bringing public attention to “hidden city” ticketing, the technique of buying an airline ticket between two cities with a connection but ditching the rest of the trip. Say, for example, you want to fly from Boston to San Francisco but notice that a ticket from Boston to Seattle—with a connection in San Francisco—is cheaper. Once your flight lands in San Francisco, you prance out of the airport at your intended destination, pocketing the savings.
Airlines hate this maneuver—which has been around for decades—and argue that it violates the terms of the sale.
I’m normally not a fan of “scams” but the airlines have screwed us so often and in so many different ways, I’d have no problem using this method to save money.
I’m not even sure how it is a “scam”? They got their money. If you go to a restaurant and only eat half your meal is that a scam too?
The article explains several reasons why the airlines think it’s a scam.
I dont regard it as a scam on my part to find the best fare for my travel.
I regularly take a train between London Kings Cross and Edinburgh Waverley. A full single fare on day of travel is £110. At Kings Cross station they will offer you a return fare deal, its an extra £6.50.
I can buy at the exact same time on day of travel a fair from Kings Cross London to Newcastle for £60, get off at Newcastle and buy a ticket to get on the exact same train to take me to Edinburgh for an extra £28. Same train same day total £88.
If I buy online the day before, the same exact train £56.
This must be for carry-on luggage fliers.
How do you get your checked-in luggage? It usually gets loaded onto the connecting flight plane.
I find it funny that they said “Purchasing a ticket to a point beyond the actual destination and getting off the aircraft at the connecting point is unethical,” according to the letter by American, which isn’t party to the case. “It is tantamount to switching price tags to obtain a lower price on goods sold at department stores.”
I do not see how that analogy applies. To me, it is like a store offers a sale “buy 2 for $100 or buy 1 for $200”. It seems unethical to me to charge more for less, just because they do not want to leave any money on the table.
Is it a scam for the airline to sell Boston to San Francisco for a higher price, than Boston to Seattle, with a stopover in San Francisco?
Seems to me that’s a bigger scam than buying the stopover combo instead of the one leg flight.
It’s more like going to a very popular restaurant for breakfast, then staying in your seat for lunch and dinner without buying anything else the whole day. The restaurant couldn’t “sell the seat” again to other customers, so they (potentially) lose revenue.
Just like restaurants, airlines hate seeing empty seats. That’s why they sometimes overbook. I’m sure they use some kind of average-revenue-per-seat calculation on every flight. Empty seats lower that number.
I agree completely. Also, if you have checked bags – they are (normally) going all the way. And I’m not saying this is right, but airlines violate people’s rights all the damn time – mostly with the bad food or service and in many other serious ways.
That was my thought too. Its more like established monopolies tend to charge you for nothing (or next to nothing) and want you to be happy about it. Yet when you find a better/cheap/etc… way – THEY are not happy, yet its their own damn faults. Airlines put them selves in double jeopardy all the time – and they wonder why they are are hated (at least at the business level).
Exactly – the airlines are to blame. And ethics? HAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA!!!! No one in charge has any ethics (or any good ones) and they prove this every day – from general police issues (militarization of the police force), to the NSA to United Airlines, BP, Enron, WorldCom – the crooks really are in charge!
This isn’t a “scam”. This is a straightforward use of the airline’s own ticket pricing policies. That the media is vigorously parroting the industry contention that it’s a “scam”, as if it were somehow illegal to get off of an airplane at a layover, is a indicator of how decidedly pro-business and anti-consumer the media is.
It’s the airline’s own pricing structure that’s making this possible; they got the same amount of money either way.
ALL YER BASES BELONG TO US!!!!
ALL YER MONEY BELONGS TO US!!!
ALL YER FREEDOM BELONGS TO THE NSA & Federal!!!
— we know what is good for you. If you have any fun or do anything that makes any sense (save money) – it will be illegal!
I can see why they’d argue that, but I don’t think they have a leg to stand on.
Except they’ve probably overbooked the next leg of the flight anyway.
Caveat emptor applies. But in this instance buyers have become aware of a seller’s secret and are using it. Not in any way unethical. This isn’t even at the level of buying at a lower price because of a mistake in an ad or price tag. This is paying the actual true price. There is no ethical reason to use any product or service completely. If the airlines insist on the transaction being COMPLETELY ETHICALLY PROPER, they should be providing the buyers with a voucher or credit for the ‘missed’ part of their flight.
The airlines may call this a scam, but not me.
Is it OK for airlines to oversell flights? Airlines typically oversell flights to compensate for people not boarding, like in this case. So in a nutshell:
Yup, that passes the smell test.
The terms on the ticket that you purchase say that the ticket is valid for going from the origin to the destination. So you are violating a contract you agreed to.
The bad food and service is customer’s fault. People consistently choose the airlines with the lowest fares over ones with larger seats, better service, lower fees, etc. Airlines that focus on service and a quality experience (like Jet Blue or Virgin America) are getting killed by crap airlines that race to the bottom (like Spirit).
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/12/cheap_airlines_why_americans_will_suffer_worse_service_on_flights_in_order.html
I think its closer to you buying a parcel for 100$ just for 2-3 items on the parcel and binning the other parcel stuffings.
They’re upset because it means they could’ve probably sold off the 2-3 items for a bit more more and/or can probably make money off the parcel stuffings that you threw away.
If I buy a ticket to a movie, it’s to see one sitting of the whole movie. If I leave 1/2-way, it’s no violation. I paid for two hours and only use the seat for one. Should I be forced to sit through the whole movie? It can’t be a scam if nobody is harmed. The airlines are the lowest of the low and I have no problem with them getting what they deserve. This, unfortunately, isn’t it.
Air Travel is the Free Market vs government regulations dichotomy in a nutshell. Once upon a time, air travel was regulated, closely, by the government. It told the air lines where they could fly, how often they could fly there, (more or less) what they could charge to fly there, etc., etc. etc. It was safe, it was effective (insomuch as you got from A to B almost exactly when they said you were going to), but it was also expensive and limited.
Then came deregulation. The government pretty much got out of telling the airlines what to do other than how to maintain their aircraft and certify their crews. Now airfare is, by any standard, cheaper to MUCH cheaper than 30 years ago. You can fly to many more places on many more airlines now than you could then, although that changes (and now you can’t fly to some places you could then). However, ticket prices are completely unfathomable and are completely de-coupled from any logic other than the most basic supply-and-demand. Service and comfort are basically non-existent in coach to ‘non-status’ passengers. And the hub-and-spoke system combined with workforce minimization means that on-time rates are awful in the best of times and completely destroyed by a ‘weather event’ that’s either substantial and/or effecting a hub.
But hey, American consumers got cheaper air fares, so we’re good, right? We got what we deserved. Like in so many things, we made a deal with the Dev—uh…Corporations and traded regulation for free market chaos. The price we paid for lower prices is exactly what we have now.
I live near Minneapolis. A direct flight to London is nearly $1,700, but an itinerary originating in Chicago and connecting through Minneapolis is less than $1,600. What prevents me from booking the Chicago itinerary, skipping the first leg, and saving $100?