weero

They will fetch your luggage though if you report at the connecting port and say that you don't feel well enough to continue traveling ...

I had airlines refuse to interline luggage for me but never to short check it. Are you sure that is a thing? To the best of my knowledge, US carriers are really worried about hidden city rip-off charge circumvention but they are not very experienced with checked luggage, so I wonder if that really is an issue.

Often1

1. It is fraud as that term is commonly understood. It is especially fraud in the USA where it clearly violates federal mail and wire fraud laws. The fact that it isn't prosecuted so far as we know, doesn't "unfraud it".

2. On the broader front, many carriers simply do refuse to short check bags and will not pull bags at connection points (with relatively short connections, it's frankly impossible to do without substantially delaying the onward flight). Your bag goes on to its final destination and arrangements can be made to have it rerouted back.

The bottom line is that you cannot count on this working with any of the US carriers ad at least BA. BA will, when it must, pull a bag at a connection point. But, they are also very tough on repeated hidden city violators.

htb

That makes me chuckle a bit. I thought there were federal regulations in place that do not allow the airlines to leave the bag on board if the passenger decides not to board. Are you implying that departing on time is more important than federal regulations?

HTB.

weero

No it is not. Not by a wide margin. The court did not side with UA on this issue, not even in the context of providing hidden city ticketing services.

From a European perspective, it may well be that hidden city pricing might be deemed fraudulent. But that too needs testing.
No one talks about these. The OP has plenty of time and reason to pull the bags.
I don't think so. They make some fuss about it but it's bark not bite at this stage.

slowly

Bollocks, nonsense, whichever you prefer.

Bollocks, nonsense, whichever you prefer.

An observation which may be useful for others - whenever I read a comment that regardless of the situation idolizes corporations and basically says they can do nothing wrong, at the same time describing the customer as a fraud, acting in bad faith, '"he had it coming" etc, I bet myself I'll see that particular username on the left, and I'm right most of the time. As you see from the post count, he's a very prolific troll.

If you come to FT for accurate information, absolutely no point in arguing with him, just put him on the ignore list.

If you come for entertainment as I often do, you may be intrigued what logical fallacy and misinformation he'll use to 'prove' that customer was wrong this time. However it gets a bit repetitive after a while as you might suspect.

Often1

What ought to make you chuckle a bit is that US got rid of that silly rule in 2003, 12 years ago. Positive bag match was eliminated when 100% checked luggage screening was instituted. Makes sense too.

For the "no nothings" who didn't even bother to read the US statute, here is the text:

"Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of [e.g., Internet, cellular or landline], radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."

While it's a bit archaic, only having been on the books since 1872, the gist is an individual using some form of wire transmission (used to be telegraph, to distinguish from snail mail) to obtain an air ticket by saying he is flying from A-B-C when he only intends to fly from A-B.

As noted, not likely that anybody has or will be prosecuted for this unless it's part of a commercial scheme, but that wasn't the issue.

weero

It's "know nothings".

There is not a single conviction for fraud for users of hidden city ticketing. And the one court case prominently presented on FT regarding commercial assistance in tricking airlines with this method was thrown out by the court.

But you don't have to be a learned circuit court judge to see that nothing in this statute applies to hidden city ticketing. Nothing whatsoever. The pax pays the airline, he does not defraud it of money or property. And unless you can show that not consuming a service you have already paid for is 'fraud' under the statute the abduction of the term is laughable at best.

Why don't you call it rape or genocide or class A war crime? That triggers even batter emotions than just 'fraud'. And it's equally inapplicable.

SpewyMcSpew

Looks like your bag will be going round and round the carousel in BOS while you are in FRA. Not very smart.

djohannw

In FRA they will fetch your bags, no questions asked. You need to report at the LH luggage assistance desk in the baggage-claim area and let them know you want your bags, then walk over to the B-claim area, ring the door-bell and pick up your bags there. May take some time, however, in our case approximately 30-40 minutes to get the bags show up on the belt.

UA certainly takes issues with short-checking bags. Was unable to convince neither staff nor their supervisor that a ten-hour layover at FRA is a valid reason to retrieve the bags. Did not go the medical route, however, so I might try that next time. This happened in IAD, while a month earlier the LAX-staff (after also discussing this out of my sight with his supervisor) accepted a similar-length layover as a valid reason to check bags to FRA only...

Greetings - Dirk

weero

There's no way a bad will travel TATL without the passenger on board.

I remember sitting duck in FRA thanks to pax misconnecting, so that their bags could be pulled from the bird.

weero

That is excellent info, thanks.

For me flying to US from SIN, I often face the opposite problem with UA: the agent cannot check through NRT or in one case SIN-NRT-LAX-SAN-SFO (had to be 1 day in SAN), the agent could not check further than SAN and I have to fight bitterly to then short check it only to LAX where I had to retrieve it anyway. Quite the nuisance.

pete3

Just for info on the current practice ... I checked in at Hilo, Hawaii for ITO-LAX-MUC-OSL last week. The first segment (and hence check-in) was with United. The remaining segments were all on Lufthansa. Even after escalating up to the supervisor/manager UA was unwilling to short check my three bags to MUC, although I had built a six hour stopover into my itinary there. They said it was against policy. In LAX LH was quite willing to locate and re-tag my bags just to MUC I was travelling in paid F (A) and am SEN, so YMMV. I did have a separate OSL-MUC ticket available as a fallback solution since I live in Munich.

ellyse

You have to retrieve bags in LAX to go through US customs anyway. So why not just let them tag to SAN, pick them up in LAX, and then just either not re-check, or check-in again at a counter asking to be retagged to SFO?

sethb

Then there's no problem, because nobody is attempting to get a ticket by saying he is flying A-B-C, he is getting a ticket by paying for one.

sethb

It is not fraud because it doesn't meet any definition of fraud. United tried to prosecute, and the court told them it wasn't fraud.

It doesn't matter what "many carriers" do, it matters only what one particular carrier does in one particular instance.