Originally Posted by
poohhead80
Wow... I did not know there are posts about this..
Purchasing a ticket to a point beyond the actual destination and getting off the aircraft at the connecting point is unethical
Well.. I understand different pricing policy of airline companies to maximize their profit.
This is how they do.
Chicago - Orlando... Southwest provides low fare service. Delta wants to compete with it. So DL lower its price.
However, Chicago - Atlanta. Delta does not have to lower the price.
So what happens.
Delta Passenger Chicago-Atlanta-Orland pays $100
Delta Passenger Chicago-Atlanta pays $120
But from airline conpany point of view.
Getting off the aircraft at the connecting point migth be considered as unethical
But from consumer point of view.
Charging more money to people who travel half way is unethical, too.
Yes.. life is unfair...
It sounds like you are starting to understand the wierdness of airline pricing structures. It has been this way since deregulation and the emergence of low-cost carriers in the domestic US market.
As others have mentioned, using hidden-city ticketing is expressley prohibited in the airline rules.
You can get away with it if you are very discreet and:
- IF you don't check luggage.
- IF you don't put your frequent flyer account on the ticket. (But we are all such mileage hos
)
- IF you use different credit cards to purchase tickets. (FF accounts are easiest to track, but they can do it with CC numbers as well.)
- IF you use slight variations on your name (John Doe, J. Doe, Johnny Doe).
- DON'T go requesting refunds for unused segments.
- DON'T go on a crusade about the pricing structure. Only re-regulation will fix that.
In the old days, Delta's infamous Revenue Protection Unit (RPU) would mine the data looking for offenders. The usual penalty was to close the SkyMiles account and remove all the points.