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FAQ: Skipping Segment, Hidden City / Point Beyond / Throw Away Ticketing (master thd)

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Old Apr 18, 2013, 9:20 am
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: Prospero
FAQ: "Missing" or "Skipping Segments": Hidden City, Point Beyond and Throw Away Ticketing
Q. What will happen if I "skip" a segment?
A. Skipping an intermediate or end segment is most often referred to as "Hidden City / Point Beyond Ticketing" by American Airlines, and “skiplagging” by others; doing so invalidates the contract you have with AA regarding your ticket. AA will at least cancel the remaining segments. If the reason for missing a segment is to drop the last segment to save money on a more expensive ticket to the intermediate destination, it is called a "Hidden City / Point Beyond" ticket. American Airlines states, in the Conditions of Carriage (and more existentially in Tariff Rule 100AA):

American specifically prohibits the practices commonly known as:
Hidden City/Point Beyond Ticketing: Purchase of a fare from a point before the passenger's actual origin or to a point beyond the passenger's actual destination.
Link to American Airlines Conditions of Carriage, Ticket Validity.

Q. What about buying a round trip and not flying the return?
"Throw away" ticketing, that is purchasing a less expensive round trip ticket with the intent of not flying the return segments ("throwing away" the return tickets) is similarly frowned upon, but may be acted upon - particularly if this becomes frequent or a pattern

Q. Do American Airlines Corporate Security / AAdvantage Fraud have people and algorithms running in the background that check for these?
Assuredly, yes. Can people be found liable for fees and/or lose their accounts / status / miles? Yes, we have had many reports on FT, and the risk increases for repeaters. Can people be criminally or civilly prosecuted? Doubtful. (Link to article on Contract Fraud.)

Q. Would I get in trouble skipping the final segment?
A. Possibly not, if you don't do this on other than the rare occasion, but there is risk.

Q. Can I short check my baggage?
A. In most cases, you may find it difficult, unless you have an overnight connection, must retrieve your baggage for customs or because your connection does not offer interlining of baggage.

Q. Will I get my EQ and Award Miles.
You will likely accrue miles for the segments you actually flew. But “skiplagging” could result in miles confiscation and potentially account closure.

Q. Can I claim the residual value for the unused segment?
Au contraire; with a hidden city / point beyond ticket, you owe AA money under their rules. United and Lufthansa have billed skiplaggers, AA may have.

Q. What has AA said they can do to me about hidden city or throwaway ticketing?
“Passengers who attempt to use hidden city tickets may be denied boarding, have the remainder of their ticket confiscated and may be assessed the difference between the fare paid and the lowest applicable fare.”
A highly recommended article on this topic is 3 Words on Hidden City Ticketing: Don’t Do It (link) from ExpertFlyer, 27 Feb 2019.

Archived older posts may be read here.

For Conditions of Carriage - Ticket Validity and Letter used by AA:
AA Hidden City and Point Beyond Ticketing:

Skipping an intermediate or end segment is referred to as "Hidden City / Point Beyond Ticketing" by American Airlines, and doing so invalidates the contract you have with AA regarding your ticket. AA will generally cancel the remaining segments, and if it is dropping the last segment to save money on a more expensive ticket to the intermediate destination, it is called the "Hidden City" ticket.

The entire Conditions of Carriage, the contract that governs your ticket (in additon to the Detailed Fare Rules attached to your fare class and readable prior to purchase), are here: CONDITIONS OF CARRIAGE.

The specific language regarding Hidden City and Point Beyond Ticketing is here:
TICKET VALIDITY - COMPLIANCE WITH TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE

Tickets are valid for travel only when used in accordance with all terms and conditions of sale. Terms and conditions of sale include but are not limited to:
  1. The passenger's itinerary, as stated on the ticket or in the passenger's reservation record,
    • Any requirement that the passenger stay over a specified date or length of time (for example, Saturday night or weekend) at the destination specified on the ticket.
    • Any special purpose or status (for example, age in the case of senior citizen or children's discounts, military status in the case of a military fare, official government business in the case of a government fare, or attendance at a qualified event in the case of a meeting or convention fare) that entitles the passenger to a special or reduced rate, or
    • Any other requirement associated with the passenger's fare level.
Unless a ticket is reissued by American or its authorized agent upon payment of applicable charges, or an authorized representative of American waives applicable restrictions in writing, a ticket is invalid:
  1. If used for travel to a destination other than that specified on the ticket,
    • If the passenger fails to comply with applicable stay-over requirements,
    • If the passenger does not meet the purpose or status requirement associated with the fare category on the ticket, or
    • If American determines that the ticket has been purchased or used in a manner designed to circumvent applicable fare rules.
American specifically prohibits the practices commonly known as:
  • Back to Back Ticketing: The combination of two or more roundtrip excursion fares end to end for the purpose of circumventing minimum stay requirements.
  • Throwaway Ticketing: The usage of roundtrip excursion fare for one-way travel, and
  • Hidden City/Point Beyond Ticketing: Purchase of a fare from a point before the passenger's actual origin or to a point beyond the passenger's actual destination.
  • Duplicate and Impossible/Illogical Bookings: Duplicate or impossible/illogical American Airlines bookings are prohibited without prior authorization from American Airlines. A duplicate or impossible/illogical booking includes, but is not limited to, bookings for the same passenger on flights traveling on or about the same date between one or more of the same or nearby origin and/or destination (such as JFKDFW and LGADFW or DFWLAX and DFWONT), or bookings with connections that depart before the arrival of the inbound flight.
  • Fraudulent, Fictitious and Abusive Bookings: Fraudulent, fictitious and/or abusive bookings are prohibited. These types of bookings are defined as any bookings made without having been requested by or on behalf of the named passenger. Additionally, creating bookings to hold or block seats for the purpose of obtaining lower fares, AAdvantage award inventory, or upgrades that may not otherwise be available, or to circumvent any of American Airlines' fare rules or policies, is prohibited without prior authorization from American Airlines.

Where a ticket is invalidated as the result of the passenger's non-compliance with any term or condition of sale, American has the right in its sole discretion to:
  1. Cancel any remaining portion of the passenger's itinerary,
    • Confiscate unused flight coupons,
    • Refuse to board the passenger or check the passenger's luggage, or
    • Assess the passenger for the reasonable remaining value of the ticket, which shall be no less than the difference between the fare actually paid and the lowest fare applicable to the passenger's actual itinerary
Sample letter from American Airlines on Hidden City Ticketing:

Dear ,

Let me take the opportunity to clarify American Airlines position on hidden city or point beyond ticketing. Purchasing a ticket to a point beyond the actual destination and getting off the aircraft at the connecting point is unethical (sic). It is tantamount to switching price tags to obtain a lower price on goods sold at department stores. Passengers who attempt to use hidden city tickets may be denied boarding, have the remainder of their ticket confiscated and may be assessed the difference between the fare paid and the lowest applicable fare.

Because we compete with other airlines with different route structures, we sometimes find it necessary to give a traveler who is traveling beyond a connecting point a better price than travelers who are just traveling to the connecting point. For example, a passenger who is traveling to Austin, Texas from Los Angeles can go on one airline via Phoenix for a price that is lower than the cost of traveling on American between Los Angeles and Dallas. If we want to offer the same price to Austin as the other airline, but the only way we can get travelers there is via Dallas, we find ourselves charging the Austin passengers less than the Dallas passengers.

Although the issuance and usage of hidden city tickets is not illegal in the sense that one could be fined or sent to jail by the government, it is unethical and a breach of a passengers (sic) contract with AA. Both tariff rule 100AA and American's Condition of Carriage, which are incorporated into every ticket sold by American as part of our agreement to carry the passenger named on the ticket, bar hidden city ticketing. In addition, it violates the agencies' contract to act as an agent for American Airlines.

If American Airlines continues to lose revenue as a result of hidden city transactions, the fares we charge must inevitably rise.

Sincerely,
In August 2020 AA went after user HappyInTheAir561 for Hidden City Ticketing, demanding payment of $2,500 or permanent closure of his AAdvantage account and loss of 600,000 miles balance. Below is the letter (missing is the 2,500 quote), and there is an entire thread about it here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...rmination.html The user says he ultimately paid the money.
Mr. XXXX,

As an analyst with American Airlines, one of my responsibilities is investigating violations of the General AAdvantage® Program Conditions. An audit of your AAdvantage account, determined that you have engaged in the practice known as ‘Hidden City ticketing’; the purchase of a fare to a point beyond your actual destination. Hidden city ticketing is explicitly defined in AA’s Conditions of Carriage as a violation of ticket validity. The Terms and Conditions of the AAdvantage program further state that compliance with the Conditions of Carriage is compulsory for participation in the AAdvantage program. As such, AAdvantage account XXXXXX is restricted, pending the outcome of our investigation. You may review the terms and conditions of the AAdvantage ® program (several parts of the terms and conditions are noted below) by clicking the link below or by copying and pasting it into your browser.

The audit of your account XXXXXwas completed on August xx, 2020. The following reservations were not issued in compliance with the AAdvantage Terms & Conditions, Conditions of Carriage or AA.com Site Usage policy:

52 HIDDEN CITY TICKETS (Included each one of the flights they believe is a hidden city ticket)

Not unlike other commodities, airline seats are market priced. A seat on a non-stop flight is a premium product and commands a higher price. Seats in connecting markets must be priced competitively and hence can be substantially cheaper. The ill-effects of point beyond ticketing are two-fold; the customer receives the flight for a price for which they aren’t entitled and a seat is spoiled on the separate connecting flight. An airline ticket constitutes a contract and the terms of that contract are stated explicitly in the Conditions of Carriage. Please see excerpts below.

Mr.XXXXX, these actions have resulted in clear and considerable losses to American Airlines. In addition to our loss for the travel provided, tickets booked through prohibited practices are considered fraudulent, and therefore not eligible to accrue mileage. In this case, our loss is further compounded through the Elite mileage accruals, benefits, and services used that were not otherwise available. Generally, violations of this nature subject the AAdvantage account to termination. However, we are willing to provide you with an opportunity to restore an equitable relationship through restitution for the loss on your identified travel.

You may respond to this message by 3pm, CST, Friday, August 31, 2020 stating you would like to bring your account back to good standing. At that time, the segments will be re-priced based on your intended travel and we will send you the information so that you may make the appropriate reimbursement for the travel provided. Failure to return the account to good standing or to reply, will result in the termination of your AAdvantage® membership and all its benefits, including all remaining AAdvantage® miles in your account and any award tickets issued from it.
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FAQ: Skipping Segment, Hidden City / Point Beyond / Throw Away Ticketing (master thd)

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Old Aug 16, 2017, 10:51 am
  #151  
 
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Originally Posted by QueenOfCoach
Buying a ticket A-B-A, then only flying A-B is considered fraud. The passenger should either buy an A-B ticket in the first place, or pay the change fee to change the ticket. That's the official party line.
To clarify my above point: This is not generally correct, per the AA COC. That's only true if the A-B-A ticket uses a roundtrip excursion fare basis. Which, again, most domestic tickets do not.
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Old Aug 16, 2017, 10:55 am
  #152  
 
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An intermediate approach is to mail AArevenue accounting a check for $40 or so to assuage any guilt feelings.
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Old Aug 16, 2017, 11:06 am
  #153  
 
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Originally Posted by SamOF
There's a very high chance this isn't throwaway ticketing at all.

AA's conditions of carriage defines the practice as "The usage of roundtrip excursion fare for one-way travel."

It might be different out of smaller markets, but I almost never see roundtrip excursion fares on domestic flights these days. If the OP booked a flight with a fare basis composed of two one-way fares, there is no throwaway ticketing, and he's not even technically violating the COC if he no-shows.
Better said then what I said. There's almost 0% chance OP gamed AA, and even less that AA willingly purchased this ticket with an intent to defraud AA of a handful of dollars. C'mon guys, this isn't throwaway ticketing (as I see the title has been changed to say). This is nothing more then cancelling a return leg(s) of a flight that you can't make anymore.

Originally Posted by QueenOfCoach
Buying a ticket A-B-A, then only flying A-B is considered fraud. The passenger should either buy an A-B ticket in the first place, or pay the change fee to change the ticket. That's the official party line.
I really don't get where you are coming from with that stance. If someone wants to change a ticket to an earlier flight/different connection/origin/day of the week, there's a change fee associated with that (and usually a fare difference).

If I buy an A-B ticket and can't fly it, surely you can't expect someone to have to pay some additional penalties/fees to cancel it?

Last edited by BThumme; Aug 16, 2017 at 11:15 am
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Old Aug 16, 2017, 1:34 pm
  #154  
 
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Originally Posted by SamOF
To clarify my above point: This is not generally correct, per the AA COC. That's only true if the A-B-A ticket uses a roundtrip excursion fare basis. Which, again, most domestic tickets do not.
Yes, thank you for the correction/clarification.
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Old Aug 16, 2017, 1:39 pm
  #155  
 
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Originally Posted by BThumme
I really don't get where you are coming from with that stance. If someone wants to change a ticket to an earlier flight/different connection/origin/day of the week, there's a change fee associated with that (and usually a fare difference).

If I buy an A-B ticket and can't fly it, surely you can't expect someone to have to pay some additional penalties/fees to cancel it?
It's not my stance. I was just quoting the airline T&C party line. That doesn't mean they enforce it every time for every ticket, especially not in one-off situations.

I absolutely do not expect anyone to pay some additional penalties or fees to cancel it. Do it once, no one notices, no one cares.

My impression is the airline only cares when someone makes a habit of engaging in what they call fraudulent practices. It's not worth their time to go after the many one-timers.
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Old Aug 16, 2017, 3:44 pm
  #156  
 
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Someone up thread pointed out that most domestic round-trips are a combination of two one-way fares (thanks Southwest and other LCCs who led this trend).

This would be a good point in the discussion to jump in and say that there is a big advantage to booking tickets as two one-ways rather than one round-trip: namely, that one can no-show or cancel the outbound without affecting the return segment. Obviously, this doesn't apply to OP, who wants to cancel the return segment. But we wouldn't be having this thread if the OP had booked two one-way tickets.

There are only two downsides (1) if you need to change/cancel the *entire* round-trip you would have to pay two change fees instead of one, but this assumes that paying the change fee would be worthwhile, which isn't the case on many domestic itins, and (2) in the event that you end up with a trip in vain, you will have a lot harder time getting the return trip refunded.

I book all of my personal domestic travel as one-ways. It's especially convenient if you want to book a cheap outbound fare but don't know exactly when you want to return. Unfortunately, my work has a policy against buying one-way tickets unless I save screenshots showing that it wasn't more expensive than a round-trip, so I usually book round-trips for work.
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Old Aug 16, 2017, 5:06 pm
  #157  
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Originally Posted by QueenOfCoach
It's not my stance. I was just quoting the airline T&C party line. That doesn't mean they enforce it every time for every ticket, especially not in one-off situations.
Doesn't actually mean it's enforceable either of course. People write all sorts of nonsense in contracts ...
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Old Aug 17, 2017, 5:11 am
  #158  
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I was flying JFK-LAS-CLT-JFK, I've flown the 1:00 AM redeye, LAS-CLT-JFK lots of times, it arrives the same day as dep.
About two months ago inadvertently I booked the 11:00 pm redeye arr the next day. To "fix" my error I used miles to fly FC on the 1:00 AM. I called AA EXP desk, initially they had fears that the computer would reject what I planned to do--but since my award flt deps 22 hrs prior to what I had originally booked, this caused no issues. Once I arrived in JFK, I cancelled my 11:00 pm flt--the agent thought I might have some "credit" due, at AA REFUNDS I don't see any credits...should I be looking elsewhere?
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Old Aug 17, 2017, 10:09 am
  #159  
 
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Originally Posted by Calchas
Doesn't actually mean it's enforceable either of course. People write all sorts of nonsense in contracts ...
True.
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Old Aug 17, 2017, 10:12 am
  #160  
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Originally Posted by QueenOfCoach
Buying a ticket A-B-A, then only flying A-B is considered fraud.
Well, buying a ticket A-B-A on a round-trip excursion fare with the intention of only flying A-B one-way would be fraud. Having plans change and determining that it's less expensive to buy a new B-A ticket (or make other alternate arrangements) than to change the original ticket would not be committing fraud, it's called financial responsibility. @:-)
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Old Aug 17, 2017, 2:58 pm
  #161  
 
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Originally Posted by QueenOfCoach
My impression is the airline only cares when someone makes a habit of engaging in what they call fraudulent practices. It's not worth their time to go after the many one-timers.
AA doesn't define throwaway ticketing as fraudulent practices in the CoC.
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Old Aug 17, 2017, 4:42 pm
  #162  
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Originally Posted by deeruck
AA doesn't define throwaway ticketing as fraudulent practices in the CoC.
Not sure what your point might be, but they most definitely do clearly prohibit and define them as against AA/AAdv T&C.

This is the post you quoted a portion of:

Originally Posted by QueenOfCoach
It's not my stance. I was just quoting the airline T&C party line. That doesn't mean they enforce it every time for every ticket, especially not in one-off situations.

I absolutely do not expect anyone to pay some additional penalties or fees to cancel it. Do it once, no one notices, no one cares.

My impression is the airline only cares when someone makes a habit of engaging in what they call fraudulent practices. It's not worth their time to go after the many one-timers.
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Old Oct 19, 2017, 3:51 pm
  #163  
 
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Hidden City ticketing question. (to merge)

Hi guys, I'm new here. Me and my gf are visiting the US next month.
Earlier this year we booked on AA: LIM-DFW-ORD-HPN (long way to get to NY, but it was really cheap), which is one-way. My return ticket is EWR-FLL-LIM on JB.

As we are visiting many US cities (New York, Denver, Kansas City, Charlotte) we could visit them in any order.

The thing is that the most cost effective route right now is: MCI-DEN-CLT-NYC, for that I would have to take a DFW-MCI flight (on AA also), skipping the ORD-HPN leg of the first booking.

I know that bags have to be collected at DFW and cleared through customs...is it possible to just walk away with my luggage to other terminal at that airport?
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Old Oct 19, 2017, 4:15 pm
  #164  
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CreativeApparel, welcome to FlyerTalk! As your proposed routing appears to be with AA-operated flights, rather than United, let me move your post to FlyerTalk's AA forum, for more discussion.

Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, United forum.

Last edited by Ocn Vw 1K; Oct 19, 2017 at 4:20 pm
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Old Oct 19, 2017, 4:22 pm
  #165  
 
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The issue is not so much dropping the DFW-ORD leg.

The problem is (if I have it right), AA's system won't let you have two flights at the same time. Your DFW-MCI flight will be overlapping with your DFW-ORD-HPN flight and I think the system will cancel it.
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