Originally Posted by
fttc
This is pure fear mongering without basis. The first thing before fraud argument can even be attempted is determining the value of the goods. Of course the airlines will argue HND-IAD is worth more than HND-IAD-PIT. The consumer will argue HND-IAD is worth less than HND-IAD-PIT. Which side do you think the court will decide?
Judges have a strong track record of making utterly crazy, nonsensical decisions about highly technical issues they don't understand (see for example
Anikeev v Commissoner in the tax court for an issue relevant to something people do on FT), so honestly I would not presume to bet.
However, it is a red herring to repeatedly say "than HND-IAD-PIT". What was offered for sale was "transportation from HND to PIT" versus "transportation from HND to IAD". The pricing and entire market is based solely on this, and the fact that the transportation to PIT happens to stop in IAD is almost entirely irrelevant to this fact.
Originally Posted by
fttc
Here is why the airlines have brought zero criminal case in US even though they think thousands of dollars are "stolen", because they are afraid that the court will rule that consumers are right. Then the airlines are totally screwed.
That's why the only argument they try is violation of contract, not fraud. And on the skiplegging websites, same thing, access of data without contract. If they think they have a strong argument on fraud, they would have argued conspiracy to commit fraud on the websites, and called police.
Private entities can't bring criminal cases, and UA is quite aware that a US attorney is going to be about as interested in this as if you called your local police department and said you had your neighbor on camera going 30 mph in a 25 mph zone outside your house.
The speed limit is a decent analogy here - the fact that nearly everyone exceeds it, a vast majority of people believe it is morally justified to do so, and prosecutions are extremely rare, does not change the fact that as a matter of law
speeding is illegal.
Originally Posted by
rankourabu
Please show us proof of one case where someone has lost their account or has been banned from a US airline over a one off event where they missed a connecting flight on purpose.
We can argue all day about legality, contracts, but let's see some proof of a single case of a consequence for a one off event.
No one is getting in trouble for a one-off event. There is no way the airline could prove intent, and they honestly don't care - the cost of angering a customer over a misunderstanding is too great. HCT and other violations of the CoC can generally be done without consequence unless you make a clear, established pattern of violation - and in this case airlines generally
do take action, usually through a ban, debit memo, or demand letter. The truth with HCT is that it's
hard to make a pattern of it by nature, but here's a 2011 thread involving a demand letter for doing it weekly (and containing many of the same moral arguments):
what to do when airline warned me about numerous throw-away ticketing? ($95 vs $497)
The bottom line is that knowingly engaging in HCT is violating the Contract of Carriage, and entering into a contract with the express intent of deceiving the other party for financial gain is fraud. Whether it is morally acceptable to do this, or whether you can practically do it and not suffer any consequences - those are both entirely different questions. FT indeed exists to document how to leverage the rules to get what you want in airfare, and the degree to which various practices bend or break the rules can vary.