Originally Posted by
star_world
This has been happening for years though, on UA, CO and all of the other major airlines. I've seen options like this for as long as I've been using the ITA tool, which makes these fares very easy to find. I've also seen plenty of examples over the years where end-on-end combinations are prohibited on specific routes to protect the pricing even on less convenient routings.
I think with the advent of one-way, simple domestic fares, the days of trying to prevent end-on-end combos in situations like this are kinda dead, and the airlines just deal with it. I'd think the smarter revenue management thing to do would be to just publish cheaper fares with NON-STOPS NOT PERMITTED restrictions and let these price-sensitive folks go through hubs rather than inefficiently having them treat an outstation like a hub.