Originally Posted by
JimInOhio
Agree, the OP stated his/her intent up front but what about everyone else who's ever missed a final connecting flight?
The assertion that not boarding a final flight is "stealing" as if it were the same thing as switching a price tag is over the top. Stealing is illegal. No one has ever tried to claim that not boardng an airplane is illegal so it must not be stealing. This is not to say the airlines like it or shouldn't remove benefits to those who do this and I can understand why they don't put up with those who make this a habit.
Entering into a contract under false pretenses with the
intent of violating the contract for financial gain, principally by deceiving the counterparty into believing you will follow the contract, is fairly unambiguously fraud, which is a criminal offense (federally under 18 USC 1341 as discussed upthread).
Something like hidden city ticketing would be one of a huge and colorful variety of things which are, according to the law, criminal offenses, but in practice are seldom or never prosecuted as such because of the extreme difficulty of proving intent and the relatively minor impact to society of the crime relative to the resources necessary for a prosecutor to seek a trial. Shoplifting a can of tuna might be another example in this thread, but perhaps a better analogy could be found in tax law. For example, willfully completing a Form W-4 in a manner other than a good-faith effort to make accurate payment of taxes is a crime. Willfully failing to pay tax on time technically subjects you not just to an administrative penalty as occurs in practice, but is indeed also a crime (26 USC 7203) - similarly almost never prosecuted (unless you're a certain person.. but I won't take that into OMNI).
Originally Posted by
JimInOhio
edit: Let's not forget the airlines are the ones who create some of these mammoth price distortions. Should they be surprised when someone tries to capitalize, even if it's well into the grey area?
And this, I think, is the crux of the moral argument for many in this thread. United Airlines is a large, faceless corporation and so some combination of "is definitionally evil, so it is not wrong to harm" and "cannot be harmed by the little actions of just one man".
If UA were a small charter airline run by your neighbor on a shoestring budget, and the impact of HCT on his bottom line were more easily demonstrable, I think the feelings would be different.