Originally Posted by
disasm
Thanks everyone for your replies. What ended up happening is at the airport they simply dropped the last segment of the flight for me, for no additional charges. Though I wont do this again as it was kind of a pain, I saved around 700 dollars for my trip. Back to my capitalism point, it's really not something to laugh at, yet something to respect. I think that using common sense, a flight to Orlando should cost more than a flight 1 hour away, considering airline expenses. However, obviously pricing has nothing to do with mileage/gas, but only with competition/economics. I believe that what I practiced is capitalism, though I understand that I agree to a contract with the airlines when I purchase their product. Just as the airlines find "tricks" to charge more, being pricing more due to less competition per route or by charging for luggage, I have every right to find "tricks" that save me money (as long as it's not against US law, and as long as it doesnt hurt me), thus it's a free market. All in all, this trip taught me a lot, and I will always look to find what suits me best, in the air and on the ground
Thanks all for clarifying this for me, and happy flying!
You'd think but airline ticket prices are based off supply and demand and the market between city pairs. It's a lot like real-estate. The market is just as important as the direct cost; think about it - a 2,000 square foot house in the middle-of-nowhere Texas sells for a lot less than a house of the same size along the California coast. What happened here was you did not really buy an "Elmira - Detroit - Orlando" ticket - you bought an "Elmira - Orlando" ticket. What you are doing is taking advantage of the fact that the "Elmira - Orlando" ticket goes by way of Detroit. If the flight did not go by way of Detroit (say DL's hub was Pittsburgh and you had to go ELM-PIT-DTW), you would not be able to engage in this practice to get to Detroit; you would be stuck buying an ELM-DTW ticket to ensure you get to Detroit. I'm not getting into the ethics of whether hidden city is moral or immoral; just merely explaining how airline tickets are market based; not direct-cost based.
Just for future reference, it's not an issue with this example because DL only goes through DTW from Elmira, but hidden city ticketing does come with risks - one of those risks is that the airline has no obligation to transport you through the hub in which you plan to terminate, but only a resposibility to get you to your ticketed destination. For example, if you were booked BUF-DTW-MCO and planning to get off in DTW, and then the BUF-DTW flight gets cancelled, DL is free to reroute you via any of its hubs it serves from BUF to get you to MCO. For this reason, it's recommended that anyone planning to engage in "Hidden City" use cities close to their planned destination, such as FNT for DTW or CHA for ATL so that if you are rerouted, you're still close to your actual destination. Also, don't plan to check any bags - they will be routed to your final ticketed destination.
The other risk (which has been covered in this discussion); technically the airline has the right to go back and charge you the fare for the route you ended up flying rather than the route you were ticketed. If you keep your hidden city tickets to a minimum, you can get away with it; make a frequent occurence, and the airline might come after you.