Tumbleweed666

Here's an example.

You want to fly LAX-> DFW but its $1,000
However,LAX -> JFK VIA DFW (eg LAX-DFW-JFK) is $500.
So you book LAX -> JFK and then get off in DFW - DFW is the "hidden city".

Do it enough times and bad things will happen. (in theory, do it once and bad things could happen but anecdotally, they dont)

Microwave

The closer it becomes to departure, the less likely a seat is to be sold... That's why inventory in Z and C trickle in over time... This is the fundamental basis of inventory management for an airline: try to sell as many as you can, and allow the rest to go for SWU/redemptive upgrades/etc. By pulling 2 J seats out of inventory, when they went back in (after the hold expired) it would be less likely that they would be sold, by virtue of the fact that it would then be even closer to departure. Think about it this way: if AA have 5 unsold J seats JFK-LHR with a week to go, they have a good chance of having at least some of them go to last minute business travelers. If they have 5 unsold J seats on the same flight 24 hours out, it's less likely that 5 white knights will swoop in and buy them all, so they begin to release inventory into C to allow upgrade requests to clear.

fishferbrains

Oh come on...."Gaming" the phone system is one thing, but blocking AAs chance to sell a high-revenue ticket to business traveller is another. Good Riddance to this guy. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

How much do you want to bet he'll be taking care of his remaining 700K of miles "without flying AA"?

Thank you AA for eliminating one more guy vying for my SWU upgrade seats to CDG Bottom-line: "Buy your ticket, or take your chances". Don't do both

vail

Something does not make sense---how could he make a duplicate reservation on the same flights with the same name?
I have sometimes placed a reservation on hold and then the next day I decide to change one of the days of travel while leaving one intact and AA invariably will tell me there is a duplicate reservation which I need to cancel.

Also as many of you mentioned---nothing would happen to him if a friend made the reservation in a different name with no plans to go?--which probably happens often enough with millions of fliers.

Obviously AA allows anyone to make a reservation without ticketing it which is ridiculous close to flight time?

The humor in this situation is that even if he makes reservations--once they all cancel it does not mean that he would have received the upgrade??

Hyperacusis

That makes sense. I've actually done this once before with BOS-AUS via DFW. Probably not the best decision, I know, but it was a $800 vs $150 fare, and it was very much a one-time thing (two years ago).

brock256

Is it just me, or does his argument that there was no harm because J checked in full without his getting the upgrade not hold water? It seems entirely possible to me that AA may have ended up selling the two tickets he had blocked at a lower fare than they could have otherwise, no?

Also, the fact that J did end up fully sold indicates to me that if his "trick" had worked, there would have been significant and demonstrable harm to AA. and good riddance to this dude for sure.

pauleeepaul

For all we know this did happen- just the upgrade went to someone else.

The fact that J was full is, IMO, not conclusive as to whether AA was damaged. It's borderline irrelevant.

I- love- the rationalization that this sort of topic brings out.

eolesen

AA's gone after travel agents doing the same thing (blocking seats and then canceling) using fictitious names. IIRC, one large agency received a debit memo for $250K for activity that had been going on for months.

You might not get caught the first time, but you will be caught eventually...

brp

I agree. I do the things I'm going to do to game the system (although I wouldn't do this particular one) because I choose to do so. I don't try to rationalize my decision

Cheers.

eolesen

Gaming the system is using the rules to your advantage (i.e. flying MKE-ORD-XXX to get extra segments).

This one ain't in the rules.

Rasalon

I agree with this. If he tried to used the same name, he would have gotten a system error stating it is a duplicate reservation, and the system does not give an option to hold the reservation, you have to cancel out.

If he used a different name, how did they know it was him?

brp

Do you always follow the rules? Do you ever exceed the speed limit because you want to get somewhere faster...or just like to drive fast?

And, yes, it is the same thing. It only differs in degree.

Cheers.

Microwave

I don't think anyone here is in a position to confirm this, really. The J cabin went out full, that's been established anecdotally--however, we don't know whether AA did end up clearing an extra upgrade as a result of this guy's rule-breaking; we only know that he was told by the gate agent that J was "oversold". It's very possible that AA was in fact denied some revenue on this flight, even if J went out full.

pauleeepaul

sukn

AA.com recognizes duplicate reservations based on frequent flyer number. If you eliminate you ff number from the auto fill page during the reservation process, aa.com will let you make a duplicate reservation in the same name.

On the back end, AA runs an additional search for duplicate reservations throughout the day. This process will match the duplicate names and cancel the earlier reservation automatically even if one contained a ff number and the other did not. I'm assuming the system recognizes that both reservations were made with the same log in ff id and as such must be duplicate.