AceofClubs

Does anyone know if BA has an official policy / t&cs regarding "hidden city ticketing"?

Calchas

Have you tried reading the T&Cs yourself?

Further sectors on the ticket will be cancelled. That's all.

gingeola

What if, for example, you have an exDUB ticket but actually want to return to Manchester. You throw away the last leg back to Dublin but have a separate LHR-MAN (or wherever else) ticket for the same time, making it plainly obvious you never intended to board the LHR-DUB sector?

Calchas

What about it?

Even if BA noticed, which you'll agree is quite unlikely if you have ever used one of their IT products, BA has no remedy against you in this situation.

You have two separate, unrelated contracts of carriage. Your apparent intention to breach one does not give BA the right to breach the other.

JustTheOne

I am currently pondering something very similar for an ex-HEL trip I'm planning - a single to HEL is looking pretty expensive on our dates, while a return is better value. However, this means that we would have a flight to HEL one evening with a return booked for a future date (which we may unfortunately miss), followed by a HEL-LHR-LCY-JFK-LAX etc (or similar) ticket the next day, which will eventually include a final leg back to the European mainland that we may also unfortunately miss.

I'm usually blas� about the final leg of an ex-EU itinerary, but I'm a bit more concerned about missing it in connection with missing the return leg of the LHR-HEL-LHR flight too... Seems like that's tempting some flags to be flagged - or am I just over-thinking it?

Often1

It is telling that the BA COC, unlike those of many other carriers, does not contain a provision which permits the carrier to invalidate any ticket purchased without an intent to fly as ticketed.

In the fact pattern described in this thread, a carrier could infer that a passenger holding multiple tickets which are "impossible" to fly, has violated such a provision. BA does not have such a provision in its COC. AA, to give a OW example, does use fairly sophisticated software to locate separate tickets which are "impossible".

KenJohn

They can suspend your BAEC account (which freezes your entire Avios balance) and subject you to an audit.

Its never been clear to me what happens as a result of that audit.

AceofClubs

Thanks for the response. I have read BA's terms of carriage but couldn't find anything specific at all.
I know other OW airlines have policies in place for these types of tickets (throwaway/hiddencitY) - AA, UA.

And I have heard of people having thier BA account suspended pending an "audit" (what ever that means) but like KenJohn said theres not much info on outcome of these audits. I'm not quite sure how they could penalise you if theres been no breach of their carriage terms?

paul4040

Exactly!

Globaliser

There was once (but IIRC only once) a report here from someone who'd thrown away a lot of final sectors of ex-EUs, and who was contacted by BA. He was told that if he didn't fly the final sectors, they'd take further action - I can't now remember whether that was specified, or if so, what it was. I think that he said he didn't know that he wasn't supposed to throw away the final sectors, and agreed to fly them - and that was the end of that.

Reports of anything being done specifically as a result of this are few and far between, hence the general confidence that if you only do it occasionally, nothing will come of it. After all, people's plans do sometimes change, and BA has got bigger fish to fry than to hassle everyone who may have a genuine reason arising out of changed plans for not using all of the ticket that they originally booked. No doubt BA would normally prefer to spend its resources chasing outright and expensive fraud than to get into messy legal arguments about whether you're entitled to drop the last sector without any recourse from the airline.

But, as in so many of these things, there is an old aviation saying that is useful: Try not to fly close to the edges of the air. Bad things have been known to happen there.

Calchas

It is a breach of the carriage terms. [http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...ns-of-carriage part 3C]

You agree to fly the entire journey using all the flight coupons in the correct order.

However, the contract does not specify a remedy for breach, beyond repricing if you wish to continue your journey.

BAEC may, if they have time on their hands, decide to close your account, as they are entitled without reason in the BAEC terms. However, I suspect they have bigger fish to fry than someone missing a DUB sector.

AceofClubs

indeed. Thanks for pointing that out.

This is interesting:
3c9) If you cancel a booking before the check-in deadline for your flight, we will not cancel your return or onward reservations.

So for example if you book BUD-LHR-NRT and call to cancel the BUD flight you can still use the LHR-NRT???

BA6501

Yes, subject to a reprice

Willi90

Ultimately you are still a customer that takes advantage of options you have in a free market. Freezing your BAEC account will likely make you a non-customer...