Originally Posted by
ExAAerOnDL
I disagree - it is fraud. Let's look at the elements of a civil fraud claim one-by-one:
1.a representation of an existing fact;
When purchasing two tickets, you represent that you are taking those two trips. If your true O&D is AAA-BBB and you buy AAA-BBB and BBB-AAA on different dates, you have misrepresented that fact. Even if you use all coupons (two AAA-BBB flights, booked back-to-back such that each trip uses one coupon from each ticket), you are misrepresenting your itineraries.
2.its materiality;
DL specifically prohibits this in the CoC. Thus it is material.
3.its falsity;
See (1) above.
4.the speaker's knowledge of its falsity;
See (1) above.
5.the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff;
If you're back-to-back ticketing with the intent of changing the fare rules applied to you, and getting a lower fare, that's intent.
6.plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity;
DL has no way of knowing your ticketing is fraudulent until it starts to see anomalies in the system.
7.plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation;
When you book the itineraries, DL is assuming you intend to fly as ticketed.
8.plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and
See (7) above.
9.consequent damages suffered by plaintiff.
DL is being denied revenue that it sought from a passenger traveling on your true itinerary.
I also believe ticketing fraud is theft of services/larceny - just like jumping a turnstyle, stiffing a cabbie on a fare, or tampering with your utility meters. That DL doesn't press charges does not make it any less a crime.
As for throwing away coupons, it depends on how you work your back-to-back ticketing. Non-sequential use of flight coupons is ticketing fraud on its own, but can be used for back-to-back. However, if you're taking two trips on the same O&D, you can use all the coupons in the example set forth above and still be engaged in fraudulent ticketing practices.
Long story short - people need to stop believing they have a right to steal money from airlines through ticketing fraud. It's wrong - no ifs, ands or buts about it.
Baloney. It isn't theft and it isn't fraud. The airline can seek all the money it wants. Its customers will seek to keep their money in their own pockets .There is even one airline (with a much longer history of being profitable than Delta) whose policies explicitly allow hidden-city and back-to-back ticketing. Besides, who reads the CoC, and who cares? It's barely worth the paper it's written on.
The only risks here are your FF accounts -- you don't want to make a habit of doing this repeatedly, once or twice won't hurt -- and your credit card. In the past Delta's infamous RPU (Revenue Protection Unit) has been known to charge the fare differentials to violators' creditor cards after the fact. I've heard no reports of this happening
for years, but it has been done. Such charges should be easily contested since you never authorized them.