I totally understand why people are willing to fly a hidden-city itin. (The ethics of airline pricing and the ethics of skipping segments are covered in other threads.) There's always the reroute risk, but that's low and often negligible. But I never understand why people do this with checked bags. We get the same threads here often - can I short-check, what should I tell the counter agent, what's the minimum layover needed, etc.

If you're going to do it, just don't check a bag.

Since you're saving hundreds or thousands of dollars on the tickets, you can afford to do a load of laundry during your trip.

Now that the Internet has brought skiplagging into the mainstream lexicon, more and more counter agents know exactly what's going on when people ask to short-check. They know the end-points people book for hidden-city. They know the common airports where people hop off. They know you don't just "want something out of your bag." That's not to say that every airline cares, but for the ones that do you aren't fooling them. Anybody who has ever worked a counter for a Heathrow flight in particular has seen this dozens of times.

So don't check a bag. @:-)