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
Sep 12, 2020, 12:42 pm
#677
FlyerTalk Evangelist
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And how many days did you work in revenue management? Or are you just an armchair expert when you say that they can "tweak" pricing to solve this problem? [I don't have a problem with armchair experts because: a) that applies to almost everyone in this thread; b) I know some armchair experts who are correct more often than the people actually doing the job.]
Please, AA's Revenue Mismanagement is lost in space half of the time. Prior to Covid, they priced J three times more expensive than F on the daily MIA LAX 77W flight back then and took them almost a month to catch the mistake. Anyone who prices a 52-seat J cabin three times higher than an eight-seat F cabin should be required to take an IQ test.
Sep 24, 2020, 5:00 am
#678
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Berlin
Posts: 1,765
Kiwi.com meanwhile is offering hidden city bookings as a way to save money.....unreal.
Travel agency booked me hidden city without my knowledge
Travel agency booked me hidden city without my knowledge
Sep 24, 2020, 10:00 am
#679
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Kiwi.com meanwhile is offering hidden city bookings as a way to save money.....unreal.
Travel agency booked me hidden city without my knowledge
Travel agency booked me hidden city without my knowledge
Sep 24, 2020, 10:00 pm
#680
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
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Yikes. It's shocking that a TA site would do this for people not specifically looking for hidden city and also very likely unaware of the associated limitations and risks. IMHO it's not enough to say "oh look, your itinerary has a bonus segment, feel free to use it or not." Especially when that segment is to a third country that might have different visa requirements from the intended destination and therefore leave a traveler prohibited from boarding the first flight.
Sep 24, 2020, 11:33 pm
#681
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LOL
Please, AA's Revenue Mismanagement is lost in space half of the time. Prior to Covid, they priced J three times more expensive than F on the daily MIA LAX 77W flight back then and took them almost a month to catch the mistake. Anyone who prices a 52-seat J cabin three times higher than an eight-seat F cabin should be required to take an IQ test.
Please, AA's Revenue Mismanagement is lost in space half of the time. Prior to Covid, they priced J three times more expensive than F on the daily MIA LAX 77W flight back then and took them almost a month to catch the mistake. Anyone who prices a 52-seat J cabin three times higher than an eight-seat F cabin should be required to take an IQ test.
Jan 12, 2021, 9:51 am
#682
Join Date: Aug 2009
Programs: United Continental
Posts: 9
Hidden City transatlantic
I bought a first class ticket from London to U.S. and an economy return which I did not know if I would use or not, and which was much cheaper than a one way ticket. Does this come under "hidden city" prohibitions if I had not decided whether or not I would use the return? As luck would have it, the airline went on strike the day of my return ticket and I was refunded $300.
Jan 12, 2021, 10:18 am
#683
Join Date: Sep 2000
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I bought a first class ticket from London to U.S. and an economy return which I did not know if I would use or not, and which was much cheaper than a one way ticket. Does this come under "hidden city" prohibitions if I had not decided whether or not I would use the return? As luck would have it, the airline went on strike the day of my return ticket and I was refunded $300.
Jan 12, 2021, 10:22 am
#684
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Join Date: May 1998
Location: NYC
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I bought a first class ticket from London to U.S. and an economy return which I did not know if I would use or not, and which was much cheaper than a one way ticket. Does this come under "hidden city" prohibitions if I had not decided whether or not I would use the return? As luck would have it, the airline went on strike the day of my return ticket and I was refunded $300.
Jan 12, 2021, 11:57 am
#685
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Join Date: Jul 2003
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Back-to-back ticketing - combining multiple overlapping round-trip tickets to circumvent Saturday or other overnight stay requirements
Throw-away ticketing - use of discounted round-trip excursion fares for one-way travel
Point-beyond ticketing - use of a fare published for travel to a point beyond your actual intended destination or from a point before your actual intended origin
Jan 14, 2021, 4:18 am
#686
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It is throw-away ticketing (see below for definitions -- Point-beyond and hidden-city are the same thing). Very similar to hidden city (you are abandoning final flight in both cases) and not all that difficult to catch if you do it repeatedly. As others have noted, AA is pretty clearly going after the heavy abusers and is not going to chase after someone who only does it a few times.
Back-to-back ticketing - combining multiple overlapping round-trip tickets to circumvent Saturday or other overnight stay requirements
Throw-away ticketing - use of discounted round-trip excursion fares for one-way travel
Point-beyond ticketing - use of a fare published for travel to a point beyond your actual intended destination or from a point before your actual intended origin
Back-to-back ticketing - combining multiple overlapping round-trip tickets to circumvent Saturday or other overnight stay requirements
Throw-away ticketing - use of discounted round-trip excursion fares for one-way travel
Point-beyond ticketing - use of a fare published for travel to a point beyond your actual intended destination or from a point before your actual intended origin
Sometimes it is too easy to be greedy and want the cream and money paid for the cream. If you do this often, you can get caught. The airlines are very much to blame for trying to milk people in the first place. I was far more concerned about saving money than earning miles.
Jan 14, 2021, 5:23 am
#687
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 23,060
Many people get confused on the back-to-back/nested ticketing rule. Simply nesting roundtrip tickets as A-B and B-C to get a cheaper total fare than an A-C roundtrip booking is not a rule violation. It's only the specific case of doing it to meet the min-stay/Saturday night stay requirements of certain discount roundtrip fares. This almost always involves booking nested roundtrips as A-B and B-A. Typically this would involve someone making regular trips to a destination that did not involve a Saturday night stay (say from Sun-Thu). By nesting a Thu-Sun roundtrip from the destination inside a Sun-Thu roundtrip (covering weekend) from the origin, both trips qualify for potentially cheaper Saturday night stay roundtrip fares. Such fares are considerably rarer domestically these days thanks to Southwest (which does not have roundtrip fares) competition.
Last edited by xliioper; Jan 14, 2021 at 5:28 am
Jan 14, 2021, 7:24 am
#688
Join Date: Jun 2013
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you want to wonder if sometimes the airlines themselves are guilty of pushing passengers in this direction of ticketing ..
if the airlines just made the rules involving tickets easy and simple to understand.. a lot of the issues might not be an issue...
if the airlines just made the rules involving tickets easy and simple to understand.. a lot of the issues might not be an issue...
Jan 14, 2021, 8:14 am
#689
Suspended
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Taking just one example, Saturday night stays. Those came into fashion when the leisure market for weekend trips came around. Business travelers want to fly out and back during the Monday-Friday work week (not that some don't have other schedules) while the leisure market wants the weekends. That lower PRASM market is still profitable. However, if business travelers use cheaper fares intended for a leisure market by circumventing the Saturday stay, the viability of the cheaper fares drops off.
It would be easy to have one single published fare for each one-way segment. No discounts for anything. But, that would be a lot higher than most people are used or willing to pay.
Jan 15, 2021, 7:20 am
#690
Join Date: Jun 2013
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so airlines are basically saying.. if you traveling for business.. even though you may be a very small company.. but want to get home before Saturday.... Pay up
but hey its their business .. and they set the rules...
but hey its their business .. and they set the rules...