Aug 22, 2020, 1:08 pm
Last edit by: JDiver
American Airlines prohibits the practice known as “hidden city ticketing” (sometimes referred to as “skiplagging”, “throwaway ticketing” or “point beyond ticketing” as well).
When you purchase an American Airlines ticket you are agreeing to abide by their rules, terms and conditions. Some refer to this as a “contract of adhesion”. Your purchase is considered agreement to comply.Applicable American Airlines Conditions of Carriage (in part) — link
Prohibited booking practices
Reservations made to exploit or circumvent fare and ticket rules are prohibited.
Examples include (but are not limited to):
Applicable AAdvantage Terms and Conditions, in part — link
Fraud, misrepresentation, abuse or violation of applicable rules (including, but not limited to, American or American Eagle® conditions of carriage, tariffs and AAdvantage® program rules) is subject to administrative and/or legal action by appropriate governmental authorities and American Airlines. Such action may include, without limitation, the forfeiture of all award tickets and any accrued mileage in a member's account, as well as termination of the account and the member's future participation in the AAdvantage® program. If your account is terminated due to inappropriate conduct or while under investigation, you may not open a new AAdvantage® account or participate in the AAdvantage® Program in any capacity without obtaining the express written permission of American Airlines. In addition, American Airlines reserves the right to take appropriate legal action to recover damages, including its attorneys’ fees incurred in prosecuting any lawsuit.
When you purchase an American Airlines ticket you are agreeing to abide by their rules, terms and conditions. Some refer to this as a “contract of adhesion”. Your purchase is considered agreement to comply.Applicable American Airlines Conditions of Carriage (in part) — link
Prohibited booking practices
Reservations made to exploit or circumvent fare and ticket rules are prohibited.
Examples include (but are not limited to):
- Purchasing a ticket without intending to fly all flights to gain lower fares (hidden city ticketing)
- Buying a ticket without intending to travel, including to gain access to our airport lounges or other facilities
- Combining 2 or more roundtrip excursion fares end-to-end to circumvent minimum stay requirements (back-to-back ticketing)
- Booking a ticket in someone's name without the person's consent (which is illegal)
- Holding reservations for reasons like securing upgrades, blocking seats or obtaining lower fares
- Booking duplicate or impossible trips, for example multiple trips for the same passenger around the same time (trips a passenger physically could not complete)
- Cancel any unused part of the ticket
- Refuse to let the passenger fly and check bags
- Not refund an otherwise refundable ticket
- Charge you for what the ticket would have cost if you hadn't booked it fraudulently
- Require you refund to us any compensation we provided like bag delivery costs, and reimbursement for clothes or toiletries because of late or lost bags
Applicable AAdvantage Terms and Conditions, in part — link
Fraud, misrepresentation, abuse or violation of applicable rules (including, but not limited to, American or American Eagle® conditions of carriage, tariffs and AAdvantage® program rules) is subject to administrative and/or legal action by appropriate governmental authorities and American Airlines. Such action may include, without limitation, the forfeiture of all award tickets and any accrued mileage in a member's account, as well as termination of the account and the member's future participation in the AAdvantage® program. If your account is terminated due to inappropriate conduct or while under investigation, you may not open a new AAdvantage® account or participate in the AAdvantage® Program in any capacity without obtaining the express written permission of American Airlines. In addition, American Airlines reserves the right to take appropriate legal action to recover damages, including its attorneys’ fees incurred in prosecuting any lawsuit.
Hidden city ticketing is a way to find cheaper nonstop tickets by booking a connecting flight to a final destination beyond yours, but ending your journey at a layover point. You might find that a flight from New York to Nashville with a layover in Atlanta is cheaper than a nonstop ticket from New York to Atlanta, so you book the itinerary with the connection. But, when the plane stops in Atlanta, you end your journey there and are a no-show for the onward flight to Nashville. — scottscheapflights.com
Hidden City Audit - AA Demanding Payment or Account Termination
Aug 21, 2020, 5:42 pm
#211
Join Date: Feb 2002
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This would be interesting to see how it would end up. If they stopped matching fares, the country would get divided up into territories. Alternatively, hub pricing power would decrease and it would be similarly priced to fly on the same airline out of ATL and GSO for example.
A network carrier (i.e. with connecting hubs) often routes passengers well out of their way in order to connect the two cities that the customer wants. They still want to offer the service, in order to maintain a comprehensive route network, even when one or more of their competitors has a geographic advantage.
I live in Nashville (BNA). Lets say I want to go to Miami (MIA). If I want to fly on United (why not, since I work for them) I have to connect through Chicago, Houston, Dulles, or Newark--all of which take me well out of the way. Delta can take me to Miami with a stop in Atlanta which is right on the way to Miami. American can take me there non-stop.
How does United compete on MIA-BNA if they have to price it more than MIA-ORD in order to avoid a hidden-city fare? They can ignore the lower price on AAL and DAL and lose most, if not all, of the BNA-MIA bookings they would have gotten, or they can match the lower price for a number of tickets. Those tickets, because of the geographic disadvantage, will probably create some hidden-city opportunities such as MIA-ORD-BNA costing less than MIA-ORD. Really, how else can United offer a competitive MIA-BNA fare, with a connection in ORD, without undercutting the prevailing MIA-ORD fare? Would it be better for the consumer if United didn't offer MIA-BNA service?
Sometimes, instead of a geographic disadvantage, it is just a different market. City-pairs with lots of service/seats will tend to have lower fares even when the distance between them is greater due to the relatively higher supply in the market.
Aug 21, 2020, 5:46 pm
#212
Join Date: Jun 2015
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I don’t understand why there are so many people are here that want to argue that CoC’s aren’t slanted in the airline’s favor. If something like this went to court, what is the best case scenario for the airline? It is upheld and the status quo remains? The downside is that parts are invalid and gives passengers more rights.
Aug 21, 2020, 6:03 pm
#213
Join Date: Sep 2000
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Ummm.....this is Flyertalk. Users purposely build in extra segments all. the. time. Additional miles; desire to visit a certain lounge; additional segments; etc.
Aug 21, 2020, 6:18 pm
#214
Join Date: Jun 2015
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True. People on here do things that most people would find crazy. That said people absolutely do pay premiums for non stop flights and airlines absolutely will charge a premium. If airlines only week me Point A to B on a certain date, why is that flight that leaves at 5 am often the cheapest?
Last edited by Cledaybuck; Aug 21, 2020 at 6:27 pm
Aug 21, 2020, 7:04 pm
#215
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1. More VDB opportunities
2. More miles = More free trips
3. More miles = Quicker path to elite status
Aug 21, 2020, 7:34 pm
#216
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Washington DC Metro Area
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Posts: 1,067
cheers!
Aug 21, 2020, 7:38 pm
#217
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: NYC
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Ok. The airline can make changes to my flights as they see fit, while I have no such rights. They can also move my seat as they see fit, even if I have payed for a certain seat. Even the hidden city we are talking about in this thread. I can’t think of another industry that will charge you extra if you don’t use part of their product. Can you imagine a sandwich shop charging you more money if you take the cheese off the sandwich after you have purchased it?
You can't compare with other industry because other industries are not as capital intensive nor do they have numerous regulatory framework governing. Your sandwich shop does not have bother with regulations set by another country. Your sandwich shop does not have to worry about providing customer with a sandwich from a competing sandwich shop if they are unable to deliver said sandwich because bread delivery truck broke down. Your sandwich shop is not required to dismantle their equipment after XXX numbers of sandwiches, inspect every bolt and put it back together. Your sandwich shop employees don't have rest requirements or need to meet training requirements on how to assemble a sandwich. Need I go on?
Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I don’t have the time or the money to do that (neither do the vast majority of people). I would be interested in seeing the results of such a trial though, if anyone has too much money and time on their hands. I don’t think I have ever violated any airlines CoC for that matter.
I don’t understand why there are so many people are here that want to argue that CoC’s aren’t slanted in the airline’s favor. If something like this went to court, what is the best case scenario for the airline? It is upheld and the status quo remains? The downside is that parts are invalid and gives passengers more rights.
I don’t understand why there are so many people are here that want to argue that CoC’s aren’t slanted in the airline’s favor. If something like this went to court, what is the best case scenario for the airline? It is upheld and the status quo remains? The downside is that parts are invalid and gives passengers more rights.
Aug 21, 2020, 7:43 pm
#218
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Washington DC Metro Area
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Posts: 1,067
...I don’t understand why there are so many people are here that want to argue that CoC’s aren’t slanted in the airline’s favor. If something like this went to court, what is the best case scenario for the airline? It is upheld and the status quo remains? The downside is that parts are invalid and gives passengers more rights.
If you read the COC, you do have a lot of rights on your side of the contract. The airline does (and is obligated to do) quite a lot to fulfill its part of the COC. IROPS, overbooking IDB/VDB, and delayed baggage compensation/delivery for example, lose them a lot of money—but they do it because they have a contract obligation to fulfill.
cheers!
Aug 21, 2020, 7:45 pm
#219
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Of course most hidden city tickets are NOT like that. The problem with demanding that more flights/flight distance must automatically equal more cost means that Airline A that does NOT have a direct service XXX- YYY would, under your system, be REQUIRED to charge more for a connecting flight to YYY than Airline B who DOES operate direct between those two points. So...noone would fly on Airline A...who would then cease operating XXX-YYY (and possibly even from XXX at all) ... What do you think would likely happen to Airline B's prices then?
Let’s look at MCO-ATL and MCO-CLT. Obviously DL operates the former and AA the latter. AA is cheaper to ATL 100% of the time, and DL is cheaper to CLT 100% of the time (well, probably 99/99 but you get the point). Neither is going to stop operating either route, and neither’s connecting service influences the pricing of the other’s nonstop. In fact the only reason neither airline charges $500 each way on their nonstops is because of F9, NK, and in the case of ATL B6. Otherwise, what you’re describing is basically already reality.
Back when there were six or seven major airlines, things were different. In the domestic cartel world we’re in now, you may as well be choosing between cable companies.
Aug 21, 2020, 7:54 pm
#220
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What that translated to is if you live in a small city, there would be cuts or elimination of air service all together if fare charged has to tie to actual cost of operating.
Aug 21, 2020, 7:55 pm
#221
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So the intent of hidden-city ticketing only starts to become "obvious" when a pattern of someone doing it repeatedly is observed. But AA is not set up (at least currently) to dynamically search back in your history to see if you've done this before, at the very moment at which they detect you missing a connection. The date AA needs to determine with high certainty that you are doing hidden-city ticketing is probably scattered among multiple databases which they run a program to cross-check occasionally (called a that kind of occasionally-run program that checks multiple databases is called a "sweep"). And that's why they typically don't find it until much later.
And if figuring out the intent based on one occurrence wasn't hard enough, the cost of recovering the difference is probably more than the cost of losing the difference, if only one hidden-city ticketing event is known about by AA.
So that's why (for now, at least) they're apparently going after "constant" hidden-city ticketers, not "one-time" hidden-city ticketers.
But just because the famous cases here are about 52 or more occurrences doesn't mean that they'll wait for that many in the future. They just are less likely to do it for one or two cases.
Aug 21, 2020, 7:55 pm
#222
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And in those situations the government would need to regulate the service and fares just as they currently do with EAS.
Aug 21, 2020, 8:01 pm
#224
Join Date: Aug 2010
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True. The fallacy of applying techniques in my own job to an airline. Thanks.
Aug 21, 2020, 8:04 pm
#225
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Are you advocating for “re-regulation”? It kinda sounds like it. I’m not that old, but have never heard anyone that traveled in that era yearn for a return to its pricing model...