Busted Skip-Legging! (And it was EPIC!)
 

It was bound to happen. BUSTED.

I got busted by the American Airlines gate agent this evening in San Francisco trying to skip-leg to Los Angeles on a SFO --> LAX --> LAS flight. (Basically, buying a ticket to a destination that you have no intention upon going to - so that you can get off at the connection point and achieve a much lower price on an otherwise unaffordable flight.)

So. A delayed flight.

I said "but I'm meeting up with a friend in L.A."

The gate agent said "Hey, I know what you're doing, you have no intention on going to Las Vegas. You're not allowed to do that. I'm going to need to put you on a different flight to get you to Vegas since your flight's delayed!"

So I had to ditch the flight and drive to LA and basically forfeit the ticket. And she also seemed to write some choice things into the PNR when she took me off the flight.

I'm writing this because - if you do skip leg - be prepared for the occasional epic fail. And it was sort of a hilariously humbling experience.

Thanks for sharing. Most people don't always remember the consequences of what can happen if things go south. Seems that this is not your first time doing this.

Not the first time , no.
 

It's been a long time since I've done it. It's the first time experiencing an epic fail and doing the walk-of-shame to the rental car counter. I typically don't do it -- for a number of reasons.

But I do think that skip-legging is somewhat more common than people think, and I suspect they don't think of the consequences.

[there was a couple on the flight, it seemed, that seemed to be in the same pickle. The gate agent was telling them that the flight overhead bins were full and that their luggage needed to be through-checked to somewhere. They went nuts.]

Does WN fly SFO/LAX? If so, might have been cheaper to buy a walk up ticket to get to LA.

Another reason to really prepare ahead of time if attempting to do this. Minimize your carry on, more so if you have no status and will most likely be one ff the latter boarding groups. I've witness this a few times, heck, one passenger mentioned if it could be short checked. It was rather obvious what was going to happen.

Isn't it a shorter drive from Vegas to LA? Or were you going to be re-routed via PHX to really scupper your plans?

If there is a delay like this, you're better off just saying that it is too late for you to get to the purchased destination and you want a refund. That way, you get your money back and can then find alternatives to getting to your real destination.

I don't understand if you don't fly your last leg on your outbound isn't your return journey canceled altogether?

What return journey?:D Obviously that would be on a separate booking.

Ah got it...he booked two, one-way refundable fares.

Genius! :D

??

wouldn't each one-way ticket be very expensive? Is there any other fare than refundable one-way?

One-way fares in the US tend to be half the price of a roundtrip fare. So just regular cheap nonrefundable fares,

If the gate agent was giving you a hard time, you could have just stepped away and called AA to get rebooked on an itinerary to your liking.

got it. I was under the impression one gets highly penalized price wise for buying one-way fares than roundtrip.