Some of you may remember the days when there was absolutely no ID check associated with airline tickets. This allowed a certain flexibility in rescheduling. For example, if one person was unable to attend a business meeting, another person could just take their place and use the first person's ticket.

Fast-forward to today.

Assume a circumstance in which a non-refundable ticket has been purchased for travel. The individual who was supposed to go on the trip is unable to attend. Above and beyond the contractual and moral issues (all of which are, in fact, relevant to me), would the following work?

1. Assume the flight originates from one of the airports where the ID is checked a bunch of times at the security checkpoint, but not at the gate. And assume that no checked baggage is involved.

2. The substitute traveler buys a fully-refundable ticket, in his own name, for later in the day on the same carrier and gets a boarding pass.

3. The substitute traveler proceeds to a quick check machine to get a boarding pass issued to the "original traveler".

4. The substitute traveler proceeds to the security inspection and shows his own ID and his boarding pass for the later flight.

5. The substitute traveler goes to the gate for the original flight (the one with the non-refundable ticket) and boards that flight using the genuine boarding pass issued in the name of the original traveler.

6. Sometime in the future the substitute passenger gets a refund for the fully refundable flight for which he was a no show (a boarding pass, which isn't submitted for the flight, is still a no show).